The Burning of the Convent. 



The Burning of the Convent. 



A NARRATIVE OF THE DESTRUCTION, BY A MOB, 

OF THE URSULINE SCHOOL ON MOUNT 

BENEDICT, CHARLESTOWN, AS 

REMEMBERED BY ONE 

OF THE PUPILS. 













BOSTO 

JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 

1877. 



Copyright. 
LOUISA WHITNEY 

1877. 



University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
Cambridge. 



PEEFATOEY NOTE. 




T was not originally the intention of 
the writer of this little volume that 
it should come before the public. A few 
copies were printed for private distribution 
among friends, and there it was supposed the 
matter would end. The story of the Burning 
of the Convent seems, however, to have been 
received with a much hio-her decree of interest 
than was expected; and it was deemed best, 
for various reasons, to accede to the request 
of the present publishers that it should be 
reprinted for general circulation. 

The volume is entirely what it purports to 
be, — the author's recollection of events which 



VI PREFATORY NOTE. 

happened forty-two years before this record of 
them was made. It was written without any 
reference to outside sources of information; 
and although it has since Mien into the hands 
of fellow-pupils who were in the Convent at 
the time of its destruction, no material error 
in the story has been pointed out. Human 
testimony is fallible, especially when recorded 
after a great lapse of time; but this narra- 
tive may fairly be received as a truthful ac- 
count of events so extraordinary as to have 
impressed themselves indelibly on a naturally 
retentive memory. T w 

Cambridge, Mass., 
May 1, 1877. 




INTRODUCTORY. 



(I 



HILE the present generation was still in 
its infancy, Mount Benedict took its place 
among the storied hills of Charlestown, 
Mass., — the three B's, — a hill of battle, like 
Bunker and Bieed, only the battle had its origin 
in religious instead of political differences, and 
bigotry made the attack and won the victory. I 
was one of the vanquished on this occasion, being 
at that time a small child. 

So many years have elapsed since the event, — 
which, besides, was followed by no results appre- 
ciable by the multitude, — that I dare say few 
persons at present know that the finest Ursuline 
Convent in New England was once established 



2 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

on Mount Benedict, in Charlestown. It was built 
expressly for a boarding-school, and intended for 
the children of rich men, Protestants preferred. 
It was, for those days, — I am speaking of the 
early part of this century, — an immense struc- 
ture, perfectly furnished and appointed for the 
purpose ; and a body of Irish Nuns, educated in 
French convents, were imported to give the in- 
struction. Nearly the whole of Mount Benedict 
was enclosed for the use of the Convent ; there 
was a lodge, a Bishop's house, several terraced 
walks, and grounds tastefully laid out, for the 
recreation of the pupils. No such elegant and 
imposing building had ever been erected in New 
England for the education of girls. Picturesque, 
on the summit of the hill, with a background 
of trees, and a foreground of green terraces bor- 
dered with shrubbery which descended to the 
road, its many-windowed facade, glowing in the 
light of the setting sun, was a sightly object to 
the good citizens of Boston, returning from their 
afternoon drive into the suburbs. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



" The Convent " soon became a very popular 
school with these " solid men of Boston," and 
elsewhere, — even from the extreme north and 
south of the country. Girls were sent from 
Canada for the benefit of a warmer climate, and 
from New Orleans that they might be braced by 
a cooler atmosphere. The conventual school-sys- 
tem had great attractions for parents brought up 
under stern Puritan restrictions, against which 
their daughters were beginning to rebel ; but it 
was an odd idea to call in Catholic discipline as a 
substitute for Puritan restraints which they could 
enforce no longer. My father, who believed in 
the widest liberty for men, was always lamenting 
the growing independence of women, and the 
difficulty he found in keeping his daughters under 
the old rule of implicit obedience ; and as soon 
as I was old enough to be sent from home, he 
resolved to put me into the Ursuline school on 
Mount Benedict, Charlestown, there to remain till 
I was twenty years of age, — happy in the belief 



4 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

that the Nuns could save him the trouble of educat- 
ing me in habits of strict submission to authority. 

Nearly fifty years have elapsed since the day 
when my mother told me that I was to be sent to 
" the Convent " boarding-school. I remember it, 
because to hear the news I was ordered in from the 
garden, where I was comfortably keeping house 
under a tall currant-bush, with a gooseberry-bush 
wash-house attached, on whose thorns my doll's 
wardrobe was drying. They twitched my sandy 
locks, and w 7 ounded my still more sandy fingers, as 
I literally tore myself away to obey the summons. 

Nearly fifty years ! and it happened that on 
the anniversary of that very day, I, an almost old 
woman, broken down in health, found myself 
driving with my husband in Charlestown, and 
passing along the very base of Mount Benedict. 
That hill still wore its respectable crown of ruins, 
an unusual ornament in our country, and the 
ascending terraces were still w r ell defined, though 
the plan of the old pleasure-grounds was obi iter- 



INTRODUCTORY. 



ated by time. For everything had heretofore 
been allowed to remain just as the hands of the 
mob left it, the Catholics having indulged them- 
selves in the expensive luxury of retaining the 
Convent property as a memorial of Protestant 
bigotry. But, to my astonishment, on this day 
of which I speak, I saw that the base of Mount 
Benedict was swarming with sudden life; a steam- 
paddy had already made a breach in it, and was 
hard at work, storming it vigorously, assisted by 
an army of Irishmen with dump-carts. The hill 
had evidently been secularized, sold, and was in 
process of grading ; religious resentment could 
not always stand before the rise in real estate. 

When I saw the work of levelling the hill fairly 
under way, I began to wonder how long it would 
be before the story of the destruction of the Con- 
vent by a mob would be forgotten in the neigh- 
borhood when those reminder ruins were removed 
and their site covered with blocks of houses. 
Probably Catholics would not be allowed to forget 



TIIE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 



it, for they were the martyrs; but Protestants 
would be glad to lose the memory of that singular 
outburst of bigotry. Then we "fell on talk" 
regarding the events of that August night of riot, 
and my husband was surprised to find how accu- 
rate was my remembrance of my own small part 
in the drama, and he made me promise to write 
down my recollections thereof. So, without fur- 
ther preface, here is the 



STORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE URSULINE 
CONVENT ON MOUNT BENEDICT, 

ON THE NIGHT OF AUGUST U, 1834, 
AS REMEMBERED BY A VERY SMALL EYEWITNESS. 




T was in June, 1834, that my mother 
told me I was to enter the Convent as 
a pupil as soon as the summer vacation 
should be over. Dr. Lyman Beecher was the 
individual who fixed the time of my entrance ; 
during the previous winter he had been denoun- 
cing fiercely " the Devil and the Pope of Rome " 
in a course of lectures in Boston upon Romanism, 
exciting a strong feeling against Catholics and all 
their ways. My father was a Unitarian, violently 
opposed to Orthodoxy, and a spirit of antagonism 
to Dr. Beecher led him to carry out at that time 
the plan he had long formed for my education in 
a convent. 



8 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

In a few days after this had been announced to 
me, I remember that a Convent school-circular 
appeared in the house, which my mother and 
I studied zealously. It was ornamented by a 
vignette of the building, in which the three prin- 
cipal doors, at the head of three lofty flights of 
stone steps, were very prominent. Four ladies, 
sitting quite at their ease in a barouche, spite of 
the galloping of their horses, appeared driving up 
to the middle door, while the Charlestown stage 
(omnibuses were not in those days), in a cloud of 
dust, and crowded with pupils, was seen modestly 
drawing up to a side entrance. I was never weary 
of gazing upon this wonderful work of art. nor of 
reading the circular over and over, till I knew it 
by heart. 

The school, according to that document, was 
divided into two sections, Senior and Junior, — 
terms which inspired me with great respect, nor 
could I imagine myself putting on the dignity 
proper even to a Junior. Classes and studies 
were elaborately set forth, the names of sundry of 
the text-books being past my powers of pronoun- 



SUNDAY PRIVILEGES. 9 

cing, even with the help of the dictionary. The 
pupils were allowed only to spend one Sunday in 
a month out of the Convent, either with their 
parents or guardians, and my prophetic imagina- 
tion warned me that each month would seem a 
compressed eternity. Sunday duties were denned 
in deference to Protestant prejudices; the pnpils 
were expected to attend Morning Mass, but Prot- 
estants might read their own Bibles during the 
ceremony. Owing, perhaps, to the Puritan strict- 
ness of home, — for, notwithstanding my father's 
Unitarian belief, he thought it conducive to dis- 
cipline to keep the Sabbath as it was kept in his 
youth, — I did not value that privilege, as my 
mother assured me I ought to do, nor yet the 
prospect of committing chapters to memory on 
Sunday afternoons, which indulgence the circular 
also promised to Protestant children. In my heart 
I suspected that the Catholic pupils had the easiest 
Sundays to bear. 

It was a relief to turn from those gloomy para- 
graphs in the circular to those which treated of 
dress ; this matter was discussed with a seriousness 
1* 



10 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

befitting the greater importance of the subject. 
The pupils were expected to dress in uniform : 
blue merino frocks, darker blue wadded pelisses, 
beaver bonnets trimmed with blue, was the wear 
for winter ; and pink calico, as the best washable 
color, for summer, with white frocks for "best," 
black silk capes and aprons, and straw bonnets 
trimmed with pink. No wonder I remember the 
details, for my mother read them over and over 
in every tone of voice, from defiance to despair 
and from despair to submission, in view of the 
trouble and expense involved in preparing such 
an outfit for me. Mrs. Richards the dressmaker, 
who worked for the family one month in spring, 
another in fall, made her appearance, with top- 
less thimble and dangling pin-ball, to sew for me 
alone. Pink gingham garden-aprons and " cape- 
bonnets " were also insisted upon by the circular, 
and as many under-garments indicated as were 
then thought necessary for a bride. And such a 
fabulous number of stockings was required, that 
my soul was disquieted within me by visions of 
future darning; I had been used to sharing a 



MY OUTFIT. 11 



limited supply of hosiery with a sister about my 
size, and we had divided the task of mending 
them between us. 

During these days of preparation we were com- 
pelled, sorely against the grain, to perform daily 
long " stints " of hemming, for an outfit of sheets, 
pillow-cases, towels, napkins, etc., was required 
of each pupil ; but we were allowed to take our 
sewing and our little chairs to the platform of the 
garden-pump, and tell stories to each other, under 
the shade of a crab-apple tree, whose fruit was in 
a promising state of sourness. 

It was a sad reflection that I should be away 
at school when those crab-apples became ripe, but 
my sister promised to keep my share for me in 
the bottom of a battered coal-hod in the garret. 
Last of all, a bottle of Kidder's indelible ink was 
exhausted in a grand marking, and piles of white 
work occupied every sunny window in the house. 

I am afraid to say how much money was spent 
in school-books for my benefit, as my father actu- 
ally got every series used by the different classes 
of pupils through the whole course of study, as 



12 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

given in the circular, — I suppose to convince 
himself that he was really disposing of me for 
years to come. 

My mother used to sit up at night and sew 
cloth covers on the books, and write my name 
therein in her handsome " hand o' writ." " Suffi- 
cient for the day is the evil thereof," I thought, 
and I declined to look into them till I should be 
compelled to do so in progress of time. Then 
came the arduous task of packing my trunk, 
which my mother accomplished on her knees, 
and with as much care as if I had been <roin£ 
to Pekin instead of to Charlestown, only four 
miles off. The sole piece of finery admitted — 
a pink sash to wear with the white frocks — lay 
on the top, and I endeavored to draw from it all 
the consolation it was capable of affording, as my 
mother forbade me to take playthings or story- 
books to school. I had wasted enough time over 
them, she thought, and I was now to be intro- 
duced to the stern realities of life. 

My father drove me over in the chaise to 
Charlestown, to introduce me to my future home 



INTRODUCTORY VISIT. 13 

and teachers a few days before the term began. 
Wretched, depressing necessity ! I remember, as 
we slowly ascended Mount Benedict by the drive- 
way, comparing the real appearance of the Con- 
vent with my recollection of the vignette which 
ornamented the circular. The building did not 
seem quite so high, or the doors so broad, or the 
nights of steps — veritable Jacob's-ladders in the 
vignette — quite so lofty. I missed the barouche 
and the stage, but, to make amends, the Lady 
Superior's coach was at the main door, with two 
fat horses and a fat coachman, all as motionless 
as those in the vignette. My father instantly 
drew up to the carriage, and jumped out of the 
chaise. I felt by instinct that this was an occa- 
sion. The door opened, and the Superior ap- 
peared, coming down the steps. She was of 
medium height and very stout, but she had the 
quick step and vivacious air of a French-Irish 
woman, and she carried herself with a royal up- 
rightness and dignity that compelled deference 
from all who approached her. Servants followed 
her with shawls, cushions, and parcels, and their 



14 THE BURNING OF TI1E CONVENT. 

deferential manner made her grand air more ap- 
parent. I observed that the coachman lowered 
his head on his breast as the Superior drew near, 
that my father bowed lower and lower, that she 
addressed him as a queen would address a subject, 
that a word was said about me, that the lady's 
eagle eye was turned upon me for a moment, 
whereupon my head also fell upon my breast. A 
slight bustle, — I remember the Superior got into 
her coach while my father was hesitating as to 
whether it would be proper for him to assist 
her, — a slamming of carriage doors, and with a 
solemn jog-trot the fat horses bore away their 
mistress. Nobody was permitted to use the 
grand entrance but the Superior and the Bishop ; 
my father and I were ushered into the Convent 
by a portress at a side door, and shown to the 
"parlor." As usual in convents, a grating sep- 
arated the guests' division of the apartment from 
that appropriated to the Religieuses who came 
in to attend visitors. The solemn portress, who 
looked as if the muscles of her face were stiffened 
for want of smiling, bade us sit down, in a sepul- 



SISTER MARY BENEDICT. 15 

chral whisper, and vanished as if shod with felt. 
A great bell clanged through the carpetless house, 
and I set myself to watching the darkness, that 
to my eyes, fresh from the light of a summer 
noon, seemed to be condensed behind the oppos- 
ing iron bars. A faint rustle quickened my atten- 
tion, a black figure moved through the darkness 
in wavering lines, stopped at the middle of the 
grating, and a beautiful face looked out of it. 
The "garb" of the Superior had not impressed 
me much, it made but a faint blot on the out- 
door sunshine, but the black setting to Sister 
Mary Benedict's face and figure, as seen behind 
the grating, had a sombre effect. Young as I 
was, the Sister's beauty struck me at once, and 
I pitied her for having to muffle it up in such a 
gloomy head-gear. My father did not appear to 
find it disfiguring, however; his manner was ex- 
pressing great admiration, I thought, and I won- 
dered how the Sister could keep her eyes cast 
down so steadily, and the muscles of her face so 
motionless, and how she managed to sj3eak with- 
out parting her lips. 



16 ' THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

Again there was a word said by my father 
about poor little me, and I was summoned to 
stand close to the grating, so that Sister Mary 
Benedict's downcast eyes might rest upon me 
easily. A white hand stole out from the black 
hanging sleeve, and placed itself on my head. I 
raised my eyes anxiously to her face, not expect- 
ing in my humility to meet a glance of approba- 
tion, but longing for one little look of sympathy, 
homesick as I was already by anticipation. Alas ! 
I might, as well have sought for it in a face of 
stone, and I felt instinctively that her soul as well 
as her body was shut out from me by an immov- 
able barrier. 

I returned home from this introductory visit to 
my future abode w T ith a heart as heavy as lead ; 
my dear sister flew to meet me, and to ask me 
a thousand questions about my experiences, and 
I could only weep bitterly as I assured her that I 
knew, I was certain, I w r as going to be WTetched 
at the Convent. I could not answer her anxious 
'•Why, but why V 1 I felt my reasons, but I could 
not put them into words ; I had a conviction that, 



SOMETHING IN THE WIND. 17 

like "Chicken Little," I was going to a place where 
I had " no business to be," and I felt new anguish 
in parting with all that my soul held dear. I had 
a grand wash of my doll's clothes, which were put 
away in a candle-box. I even washed and ironed 
the ribbons which my yellow kitten wore round 
her neck, and I nearly killed my black rabbit by 
stuffing him too often with fresh clover in my 
farewell visits. I so longed for something to 
happen which would prevent my going to the 
Convent that I almost expected a miracle would 
be wrought in my favor, nor did I neglect natural 
means. I am ashamed to say that I ate green 
apples and sat in draughts, vainly hoping that I 
might fall ill, and be kept at home to take castor- 
oil and rhubarb. 

There really seemed to be opposition in the air 
to my going. Several gentlemen called on my 
father during the few last days of my stay at 
home, for the purpose of talking to him about the 
Convent, as I fancied from sundry overheard sen- 
tences. It seemed very natural to my childish 
mind that the public should interest itself in a 



18 THE BURNING OF TEE CONVENT. 

matter that concerned me so deeply. I lingered 
near my father when these talks were going on ; 
as well as I could make out by paying strict atten- 
tion, I learned that something had occurred which 
made the Superior gracious to my father when he 
met her entering her carriage on the day of our 
visit, and unusually gracious also to others, and 
which caused her to show herself more than usual 
by driving about the country and stopping at the 
houses of her friends. That same something caused 
Sister Mary Benedict, the most beautiful and fas- 
cinating of all the Nuns, to be sent constantly to 
see visitors in the parlor, and that something in- 
spired her to be more charming to them than ever. 
Then allusions were made to a young girl who had 
written a lying book, but my father would never 
let me listen long enough to arrive at the heart of 
the mystery. He held consultations in a low voice 
with my mother ; I hoped they would end in a 
reprieve from school, yet I had a sickening feeling 
that my new books and clothes had cost too much 
to be given up unless the equivalent money could 
be miraculously restored to my father's pocket. 



I LEAVE HOME. 19 

After all, nothing occurred to prevent my going, 
and I was taken to the Convent, punctually, on 
the appointed day. The last things put into my 
trunk were the inevitable silver spoons, fork, and 
mug, usually the only valuable furnishings of a 
boarding-school table. I was too heavy-hearted 
at the moment of leaving home to weep ; I had 
put my doll to sleep for a month's nap; I was 
already looking forward to my return at the end 
of that time, and my sister promised she should 
not be disturbed. That faithful friend also de- 
clared she would nurse my kitten even in prefer- 
ence to her own, and that my black rabbit should 
be fed first. How differently I should have felt, 
as I gave my sister the last solemn kiss of parting, 
could I have foreseen that before my doll's first 
monthly nap was over I should have left the 
Convent forever, and that the place itself would 
be wiped out of existence. I may as well relate 
here the events that were working out the ruin 
of the Convent, — events resulting in sorrow and 
misery, even death, to some of the victims, but 
bringing happiness to one little girl. 



20 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

Among the foreign customs retained in the 
Ursuline School, which fascinated plain Protes- 
tants by its novelty, was the pleasant one of 
holding annually a high state-festival day, called 
"Coronation day," just before the commencement 
of the summer vacation. On that day only, 
parents and guardians passed the limit of the 
parlor, and were allowed admission to the school- 
rooms. The music and dancing rooms were pret- 
tily decorated, and furnished with rows of seats, 
which were crowded with delighted elders, who 
forgot the heat of a July day in admiring the 
proficiency of the pupils in the accomplishments 
taught in the Convent. There were performances 
on the harp and guitar, as well as on the piano, 
by curled darlings, dressed in the prescribed white 
frocks and pink sashes. Drawings, landscapes in 
India-ink, and fancy-work were handed about, and 
high art was represented by theorem-paintings, 
Grecian ditto, and painting on velvet. There 
were part-songs, recitations, and little dramas 
performed ; the results of the yearly examinations 
were made public; and, last of all, there was a 



CORONATION DAY. 21 

grand mustering of the white frocks and pink 
sashes on the platform, from the midst of whom 
a queen was chosen, not by her schoolmates, but 
by the Nuns, who led her forward to the front 
of the platform, and presented her to the public 
as the prize scholar of the year, averaging first 
both in lessons and deportment. As it was never 
known beforehand on whom the choice would fall, 
this was a moment of great excitement to the 
pupils, and to the queen herself perhaps the 
proudest moment of her life. Then there was a 
Coronation, — a crown of beautiful white artificial 
flowers, made by the Nuns, was put upon the 
queen's curls, she was led to her throne, which 
was, after a while, transferred to the head of the 
long table in the Refectory, on which a magnifi- 
cent collation was spread. The meagre diet of a 
year was forgotten in the splendor of this repast, 
wherein figured every indigestible delicacy that 
French confectioners could devise to tempt the 
palates of the children. Some of the Nuns were 
accomplished confectioners, — Paris-trained, as the 
school legends ran, — and it was a wonder that 



22 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

they did not forget an art practised only once a 
year. 

Sister Mary John, the Mother- Assistant, as she 
was called, standing next in rank to the Superior 
and her natural successor, was the principal 
teacher of music at the Ursuline Convent. On 
her had devolved the musical training of the 
pupils for the last fete-day which was ever held 
at the Convent, and which happened a few weeks 
before the time of my entrance as a pupil. She 
had been overworked throughout the year, having 
had an unusual number of scholars, and the final 
labors of " Coronation day " were too much for 
her weary frame. A frightful headache seized her 
even before the children dispersed on the evening 
of that day for the summer vacation, which ter- 
minated in brain -fever and delirium. Though 
tenderly nursed and closely watched, she con- 
trived, one hot day, when doors and windows 
were left open, to elude the vigilance of her 
nurses, and to make her escape into the world, 
poor thing ! in her nightgown. She flew, ghost- 
like, down the long slope of Mount Benedict, and 



SISTER MARY JOHN'S ESCAPE. 23 

rushed into the first house outside the Convent 
precincts, a farm-house occupied for many years 
by Mr. Cutter, and situated on the main road. 
Though a Yankee and a Protestant, he was a good 
neighbor to the Ursuline community, for he let 
them alone severely ; but when this fever-stricken 
apparition with wild eyes and shorn head burst 
upon him, as he sat at dinner with his family, 
he bade his wife look after her, and hurried up 
to the Convent to let the frightened Nuns know 
where their patient might be found. The Supe- 
rior's carriage, fat horses and coachman, with the 
stately lady herself inside, were soon seen stand- 
ing at Mr. Cutter's front door. Some passers-by 
must have witnessed the struggle that ensued, 
when poor Sister Mary John, screaming and rav- 
ing in delirium, was half forced, half persuaded, to 
enter the carriage, which immediately returned to 
the Convent at a pace which probably astonished 
the fat horses even more than the passers-by. In 
a few hours an ingenious story began to be circu- 
lated in and about Boston, and implicitly believed 
by many people, to the following effect : " A poor 



24 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

Nun, who had fallen under the displeasure of the 
tyrannical Superior, and had been imprisoned a 
long time in the underground cells of the Con- 
vent, had at last contrived to make her escape, 
but had been followed by the Superior to the 
house where she had taken refuge, and carried 
back to the Convent by force, spite of her cries 
and frantic resistance." A perfect storm of indig- 
nation followed the circulation of this stoiy, which 
it was almost impossible to refute, truth and 
falsehood were so mixed up in it. The indigna- 
tion grew and deepened unavoidably, for this 
story, of which some of the facts were true, and 
all the inferences false, seemed to justify the dis- 
like and suspicion that had long been gathering 
against the Convent. The handsome building it- 
self, overlooking the Sovereign People's highway, 
and standing in extensive grounds that must not 
be entered, invited the curiosity that it repelled. 
So did the stranger ladies, the Nuns, who occu- 
pied it, and who so entirely ignored the world 
around them. In fact, the whole establishment 
was as foreign to the soil whereon it stood as if, 



DR. BEE CHER PREACHES. 25 

like Aladdin's Palace, it had been wafted from 
Europe by the power of a magician. During the 
winter before my acquaintance with the Convent 
occurred the great revival of religion in New 
England, and the old hatred of Catholicism woke 
up under its influence. As I mentioned before, 
Dr. Lyman Beecher delivered a course of lectures 
in Boston, in which the " Devil and the Pope of 
Rome" were never introduced one without the 
other, as inseparable in his mind as the Siamese 
Twins in body, — who, by the way, were first 
exhibited about that time. Dr. Beecher fiercely 
denounced convents, and enlightened the people 
as to the depravity popularly supposed to exist 
inside their walls. Very opportunely for the effect 
he wished to produce, a book called " Six Months 
in a Convent " was just then published, the work 
of a silly, ignorant, deceitful girl, a native of 
Charlestown, whom the Superior of the Ursuline 
Convent had charitably taken into her employ as 
a seamstress. The public mind was in exactly the 
condition to accept this book as true, and read it 
with avidity, though it was palpably a tissue of 
2 



26 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

falsehoods and stupid misconceptions from end to 
end. It purported to relate the threats and per- 
suasions used by the inmates of the Convent to 
make the writer a Catholic against her will, and 
it ended with an account of her escape from their 
clutches just in time to save herself from being 
carried off by force to St. Louis. The story pro- 
ceeded in the usual melodramatic course, if I 
remember it rightly, — I am sure I have read it 
over again, under different titles, several times 
since ! The girl — I can't remember her name — 
left an interesting orphan, excites the sympathy 
of good Catholics in the neighborhood of the 
Convent, by expressing an interest in their form 
of worship, and a dissatisfaction with her own 
Protestant creed, whatever it was, — " Methodist, 
Baptist, Hunker, Dunker, Shaker, or Quaker," as 
Southey says. The Superior of the Ursulines is 
persuaded to admit her into the Convent, that she 
may be taught the doctrines of the Church, and 
confirmed in her desire to embrace them. No 
doubt she was an important person among the 
Catholics at that time, and treated with attention, 



"SIX MONTHS IN A CONVENT." 27 

as converts were not so common as they are now. 
Bat -after she enters the Convent she finds that 
she has to work hard, to live abstemiously, to 
keep fasts, to perform penances, to rise early, to 
obey in silence, to have no will of her own, to live 
within four walls. She relates all these details of 
a conventual life, as if they were so many affronts 
put upon her by the Superior to punish her for 
changing her mind, while that lady's persuasive 
flatteries were by no means a sufficient counter- 
balance, — layers of jam too thin to cover such 
largo pills. Catholicism lost all its charms for 
this young woman ; her experience in the Convent 
dispelled all her romantic illusions in its favor; 
and the life of a Religieuse, on a near view, seemed 
beautiful no longer. She finds herself more of a 
Protestant than ever, and wonders how she ever 
came to desire to change her religion. Plenty of 
weeping and repentance through the book, till the 
young woman discovers the deep-laid plot to con- 
vey her to St. Louis for the purpose of shutting her 
up in a Convent there, and making a Catholic of 
her by force. How this is to be done is left a 



28 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

mystery over which the victim and her readers 
shudder together. Sleepless nights and agonized 
days follow this fearful discovery, but when, oppor- 
tunely hidden behind the organ in the chapel, she 
overhears the Superior and Bishop Fenwick actu- 
ally settling on the very day when this plot is to 
be carried out, the young woman can bear it no 
longer, but makes an elaborate escape from the 
Convent by climbing fences and breaking down 
lattice-work, to the best of my remembrance, in 
preference to walking out of the door, which could 
not have taken her half the time. 

The indignant Protestants, who implicitly be- 
lieved this false and foolish book, never asked 
themselves what motive but a charitable one could 
have induced the Superior to burden herself with 
the charge of a sickly, ignorant, poor, and friend- 
less girl, who begged for her protection ; and what 
motive she could have had for keeping such a 
useless creature against her ivill. 

While " Six Months in a Convent " excited the 
lower classes of Boston and its vicinity against the 
Charlestown Nunnery, Mrs. Sherwood's " Nun," a 



THE TRUCKMEN ORGANIZE. 29 

fascinating tale which appeared about that time, 
prejudiced more intelligent people, who could not 
forbear mentally associating the only Convent 
they knew about with those of which they were 
reading in her book. 

The Boston truckmen were at that time a well- 
organized body of men, — a sort of guild, who 
marched in Fourth of July processions, attired in 
white smock-frocks, and were cheered by the 
crowd for their manly bearing. They were of the 
same social status as the romancing authoress of 
"Six Months," and they took up her cause warmly, 
finding her story fully confirmed, as they honestly 
thought, by the escape and recapture of Sister 
Mary John, which the newspapers detailed at 
length in its perverted form. Secret indignation- 
meetings were being held by the truckmen and 
others, about the time when I entered the Ursu- 
line Convent, and many persons supposed an 
attack on the Convent to be impending. Hence 
the visits, so mysterious to me, which my father 
received from certain friends who believed that 
danger threatened the Convent, and that it would 



30 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

be wise to delay my entrance into the Ursnline 
School. But he, and many other sensible people 
too, thought it impossible that any danger was to 
be apprehended as to a school composed almost 
entirely of Protestant pupils. 

I am sorry to have interrupted my story by such 
a long digression, but while you read it you must 
imagine me jogging along to school in my father's 
chaise with a heavy heart, in spite of my new pink 
gingham frock in esse, and a consciousness of half 
a dozen more both pink and white in posse. 

My recollections of the fortnight passed at the 
Ursuline School are fragmentary, but vivid ; like 
scenes in a theatre, with the curtain of forget ful- 
ness dropping between them. I remember arriv- 
ing at the Convent late in the afternoon, just at 
the recreation hour, and I soon find myself gravely 
walking up and down one of the long terraces in 
the garden, already a Senior, — greatly to my 
sorrow, and obliged to behave with a Senior's 
dignity, while the happy little Juniors were skip- 
ping and playing in the walk above. T ow r ed the 
misfortune of being made a member of the Senior 



THE MYSTERIOUS TREASURE. 31 

class to the advanced state of my studies, which 
fact, considering the low standard of education at 
that time in girls' schools, I may mention without 
vanity. There were several children about my 
age in the Senior class, but most of the girls were 
older, and I felt miserably out of place in their 
company, especially as I had been brought up 
with children younger than myself. Most of the 
Seniors had already passed through the Junior 
class, and were old acquaintances, having a free- 
and-easy way with each other that I was sure I 
never, never should acquire. Apropos of this feel- 
ing, I remember that the girl whose desk was 
next to mine in the school-room kept concealed 
therein a certain mysterious treasure, namely, a 
fragment of broken looking-glass, at which inti- 
mate friends were allowed sometimes to peep ; 
there were no mirrors in our dormitories, which 
made this an inestimable privilege, and I was 
so overcome one day by the apprehension that 
I should never, never become one of those fa- 
vored friends — not even if I remained at school 
till I was twenty years old, as my father had 



32 THE BURNING OF TEE CONVENT. 

decreed — that I burst suddenly into tears, and 
was fain to hide my head behind my desk-cover. 
Of course this foolish feeling was only one of the 
miserable symptoms of homesickness. 

On this first afternoon of my school experience 
on the Senior walk, I met the scrutinizing glances 
bestowed by my companions on me as a new 
scholar, with deep blushes and deprecating smiles, 
feeling very awkward in my solitude, while they 
were promenading up and down, each with her 
" particular friend," enjoying the luxury of whis- 
pering secrets in each others ears. I began to 
meditate how I could best climb the bank and 
reach the Juniors in their walk above me, with 
whom I longed to play, for they had dolls, so much 
better than " particular friends," and some of them 
were nursing their dolls with an air of maternal 
solicitude which quite won my heart. I was sure 
I should easily get acquainted with such anxious 
mammas, for we should meet on common ground, 
— surely they could sympathize in my grief at 
parting with Claribel, and my reminiscences of 
that darling must interest them deeply. 



A NEW TITLE. 33 



Imagine my mortification when, just as I had 
climbed to the top of the bank, a severe voice 
from below called out, " Miss Goddard, come 
down at once ! " I turned, hardly knowing my- 
self under this new title of Miss, and saw one of 
the black-robed Sisters beckoning with her finger 
to hurry my movements. Several Juniors had 
stopped their play and come up to look at me, 
and I had to make my ignominious descent before 
their curious eyes. Unluckily I slipped, and 
rolled sprawling down the bank, with my legs and 
arms rotating like the spokes of a broken wheel ; 
the Juniors laughed aloud, and my face burned 
like fire. 

The black Nun did not laugh ; however, she 
looked at me very gravely as she told me it was 
against the rules for Seniors and Juniors to hold 
any communication with each other except by 
special permission, but, as I was a new scholar, 
she would not report me for misdemeanor this 
time, only I w T as to beware for the future. So 
saying, she moved slowly away in her heavy black 
robes, which must have been oppressively warm 
2* c 



34 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

on that summer day. But the Nuns always 
looked cool and comfortable, and I used to won- 
der how it was that they never perspired ! — at 
least I never saw any sign of perspiration on their 
muffled faces. 

Quite humbled in spirit, I retired to a distance 
from the place of my downfall, and seated myself 
under a smoke-bush. A Senior I was, and a 
Senior unmixed I must remain, so it appeared, 
and as a Senior and Miss Goddard into the bar- 
gain, I ought not to cry ; but I could not help 
shedding a n few tears, which I wiped away hur- 
riedly on hearing footsteps approaching. Another 
pair of " particular friends " who had strolled to 
the farther end of the walk appeared returning, 
with arms intertwined, and so deep in confiden- 
tial talk that they did not notice me, the poor 
little Solitary. But as they passed me I recog- 
nized in one of them an old schoolmate of mine, 

Mary H ; old schoolmate indeed ! at this 

moment, amid the novelty of my surroundings, it 
seemed to me that I must have known her in 
another sphere of existence. I jumped up from 



AX OLD SCHOOLMATE. 35 

my low seat and called her by name ; she 
stopped abruptly, looked at me and knew me at 
once. I can't say she seemed overjoyed to see 
me, nor, indeed, should I have been specially glad 
to meet her anywhere else but in this place where 
I felt so lonely. " Why, Louisa Goddard, how did 
you come here 1 " was her first, not very flattering 
question. " I did n't know you were to be one of 
the new scholars. Just got here 1 Wonder how 
you'll like it? Darling Bella," turning to her 
friend, who had politely withdrawn to the oppo- 
site side of the alley, " wait for me a moment. 
I '11 join you directly." " No hurry," returned 
that young lady, taking the opportunity to empty 
her shoes of gravel by leaning against a syringa- 
bush, and standing on one leg at a time. Mary 
and I looked at each other silently for a minute. 
W T e had formerly been rivals at a little school kept 

by a certain Miss J , a girl only sixteen years 

old, who was extremely proud of us "advanced 
pupils" amid a little crowd of A-B-C-darians. 
We were eight or nine years old, and we two com- 
posed the " first class," and recited together out of 



3G TEE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

Wood bridge's Geography, Colburn's "First Les- 
sons," and Murray's " Abridged." 

Miss J , with great want of judgment, used 

to stimulate us to exertion in study, by pitting us 
against each other, making constant comparisons 
between us, and praising each of us alternately, at 
the other's expense, so that we generally disliked 
one another cordially. Sometimes, however, when 
the pursuit of knowledge presented unusual diffi- 
culties, we sympathized mutually, — as when Miss 

J gave us passages to parse from " Paradise 

Lost," where Milton shows his grammatical genius 
in separating his nominative cases from his verbs 
by immense distances. Till we became shrewd 
enough to look for the nominative in the first line, 
and the verb in the last line of these passages, 
and pay no attention to the rest of them, we were 
often hopelessly puzzled, and quite disposed to 

help each other by " prompting." Miss J 

used to make us " parse " from opposite corners of 
the room, puss-in-the-corner fashion, in order to 
prevent it. And in " recess" we sometimes fell 
back into friendship, when, I am sorry to say, we 



OLD SCHOOL-DAYS RECALLED. 37 

too often encouraged each other in being naughty 
and ungovernable, taking pleasure in putting our 
foolish young teacher to her wit's end for means 
to control us. 

As Mary and I stood looking at each other, the 
memory of those half-forgotten days came back 
to us both, and, being now at the mature age 
of eleven or twelve, we had the grace to feel 
ashamed of onr youthful follies. " Louisa,'' said 
Mary, coming close to my ear, " we were really 
very naughty girls at Miss J 's school some- 
times. I can tell you I behave very differently 
now, and so I hope do you" which she said with 
a patronizing air that recalled all my old dislike. 
" Now we will promise never to tell of each other 
here, and while we are at the Convent we must 

not talk before the girls about Miss J 's 

school, or let them know we ever went there 
together." Having made this abrupt and sensible 
proposition, to which " of course I said yes" — like 
Fair Zurich's daughter, in the popular song of 
that day, — Mary returned to darling Bella, leav- 
iug me plantee let under the smoke-bush and more 



38 TRE BURNING OF TEE CONVENT. 

discontented than ever, as there I sat in melan- 
choly mood, watching the girls' pink frocks mov- 
ing about in the rays of the sinking sun. 

In this way began my fortnight's experience in 
the Ursuline Convent, which made a deep and 
lasting impression on me because of its strange- 
ness. School life in a foreign convent, French 
or Belgian, would have been no stranger, save 
that we should have spoken French. Never to 
be alone, always to be under supervision, — these 
novel conditions made me unutterably melancholy. 
I will try and recall the routine that we followed 
day after day. There were no rooms in that part 
of the building devoted to the pupils, — rooms are 
for a few, halls for many, — and we inhabited halls 
exclusively. Each dormitory was occupied by six- 
teen girls ; there were eight windows on each side, 
and room for a little white bed between every two, 
while small washstands stood under each window. 
The floor was carpetless, the windows curtainless, 
— each girl's trunk was placed at the foot of her 
bed. There were two windows at the end of the 
dormitory, and it was considered a great privilege 



HO W TEE DAY WAS BEGUN. 39 

to be allowed to occupy the beds next them ; it 
was comparative privacy to have a neighbor only 
on one side, and comparative freedom to have a 
double outlook upon the world. Very early in 
the morning the great dormitory was thrown 
open, and Sister Mary Austin, our special guar- 
dian, appeared on the threshold, when she crossed 
herself devoutly, and began to recite " Matins " 
aloud, as she slowly walked along the aisle be- 
tween the rows of beds. This she did with as 
much dignity as was compatible with her duty of 
waking up the girls, by dragging the bedclothes 
off them to the right and left as she proceeded, 
practice having given her great skill in suddenly 
exposing the attitudes of the sleepers. I used to 
sit up and watch them ; some with knees touch- 
ing their chins, some in a huddle, some on their 
backs, with arms at right angles, or tossed over 
their heads, and some in statuesque positions, with 
folded hands and feet crossed. There was only 
one moment of immobility, and then every girl 
was out of bed, dressing and washing silently. 
Then in procession we went through the broad 



40 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

halls, first to the school-room, where we knelt 
down in a double row, each girl before her desk, 
while one of the oldest pupils, kneeling alone at 
the head of the room, read or recited, according 
as she was Protestant or Catholic, the morning 
prayers of the Catholic church. The school-room 
was a very large one, — Seniors from other dormi- 
tories joined in the exercise, — and I amused my- 
self by noticing which girls crossed themselves 
during prayers, and must therefore be Catholics. 
They were few in number, and generally foreign- 
looking. Then came the procession to the Refec- 
tory, where some elderly lay-Sisters waited on the 
long tables which were set out with the regulation 
spoons and mugs, and not much else. Melancholy 
as was mv usual state of mind during that fort- 
night, I felt a new access of misery whenever meal- 
times arrived. Dry bread, though excellent of its 
kind, and a mugful of milk for breakfast ; dry 
bread and a bit of butter, with a glass of water 
for supper, — meagre as this food seemed to me, 
I thought I could have swallowed it philosophi- 
cally had I been able to look forward and back- 



THE CONVENT FARE. 41 

ward upon a good dinner. We usually had but 
one course at this meal, soup made with vegeta- 
bles one day, soup-meat mixed with vegetables on 
the next. Salt-fish ditto, or hasty-pudding and 
molasses, or rice-milk on Fridays and fast-days, 
which seemed to me to be very frequent at that 
time. Having spent my early childhood in an 
English nursery, I had as great a hatred of rice- 
pudding as little Reginald in Charles Reade's 
story. " There filthy there abbommanabel," as 
he said, and I thought. I always wept into my 
mug of water till it was salt on rice-milk days. 
Sometimes for a treat we had each three or four 
dried and flattened prunes or figs, wizened to the 
size of beans, served in little cup-plates. Even 
our young teeth could hardly gnaw them, and the 
girls declared them to be bits of the Sisters' old 
shoes, chopped up with a hatchet. Even that ex- 
quisite joke failed to make me laugh in my dis- 
gust. I confess I did not get much sympathy in 
my misery, for the pupils, accustomed to the diet, 
cheerfully swallowed what was set before them, 
and thought no more about it, save occasionally 



42 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

to remind each other of the feast-days that were 
to come, particularly " Coronation day " and 
church-festivals, when the girls were put in good 
humor with Catholicism by little entertainments 
got up in real French taste. I can only say that 
there are no fete-days of the church in the later 
summer, so far as my Convent experience goes. 

However, we had food for our souls if not for 
our bodies at meal-times; the older girls read 
aloud from the head of the different tables the 
Lives of the Saints. Protestant children were not 
expected to listen unless they chose, — one of the 
liberal practices in the Convent which raised the 
school into high favor with their parents. These 
" Lives" were quite as interesting to me as fairy 
stories, — and much like them, — and, having 
nothing to do in the way of eating, I listened 
with all my ears. Our light meals were accom- 
panied by "Grace before and after Meat," pecu- 
liarly long, and there was much bending and 
crossing among the Catholic pupils, who really 
worked very hard in keeping up the piety of the 
institution, while the Protestants looked on idly. 



CONVENT STUDIES. 43 

I used to say to myself, indignantly, "It is a 
shame that the less we receive the more thankful 
we have to be." 

After breakfast the processions moved back to 
their several school-rooms, and half an hour's 
recreation was allowed, or rather the privilege of 
using the tongue for half an hour ; there were no 
playthings or games, only a babel of voices was 
heard. Then followed some hours of silence, when 
the girls were supposed to be studying, and Sis- 
ter Mary Austin held the books while the classes 
stumbled through or gabbled over their lessons. 
I don't remember that she ever explained a pas- 
sage or talked with them about their tasks ; she 
used to take out her handkerchief and yawn be- 
hind it very often. Then came more processions 
to and from the noon dinner, and short recreation 
in the school-rooms before and after that meal. 
In the afternoon, hours of silence ; fancy-work 
was pursued zealously by the girls ; some of them 
had seemed half asleep over the morning lessons, 
but they waked up thoroughly over their canvas 
and crewels, velvets and paints, and even Sister 



44 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

Mary Austin yawned no more. I had no fancy- 
work, only some dreadful plain sewing, — some 
under-garments that my mother had given me to 
make, and which Sister Mary Austin basted for 
me under protest. These cotton seams sunk me 
greatly in my own esteem and increased my mel- 
ancholy. P'or some reason that I have forgotten, 
I studied very little during my stay at the Con- 
vent and was put into no class. I used to sit and 
long impatiently for the time when Sister Mary 
Austin would place me, perhaps, in the first class, 
where I should astonish the big girls by my brill- 
iant recitations, and compel their respect in spite 
of my plain sewing. 

Late in the afternoon we walked in procession 
for our sun-bonnets, hanging in a back hall, put 
them on as nearly simultaneously as possible, and 
then two by two made our way into that part of 
the grounds known as the Bowers, — two broad 
grassy avenues, having between them something 
that was neither a hedge nor a thicket ; a deep 
tangled wall of greenery in whose recesses a double 
row of leafy arbors had been made. These were 






CONVENT PLAY-IIOURS. 45 

the summer playing-places of the pupils, Seniors 
and Juniors occupying different rows on opposite 
sides of the green partition, and being strictly 
forbidden to hold any intercourse with each other. 
But the happy Juniors played with all their might, 
and I, having neither bosom friend nor fancy-work, 
used to sit on the grass and watch their energetic 
housekeeping, a family in every arbor, dolls lolling 
about against the branches, and tea-tables arranged 
on low stumps. A dear aged Sister in spectacles, 
who darned stockings continually, had charge of 
the Juniors, and was even good-natured enough 
to let them pull at her rosary as an imaginary 
bell, and to sit quite still while a sick doll was 
carefully put to bed on her shoulder and covered 
with her veil. I witnessed many small breaches 
of discipline, — whisperings between Seniors and 
Juniors, Pyramus and Thisbe fashion, candy given 
and received, and notes hastily passed, scribbled 
on the fly-leaves of school-books. Unhappy child 
that I was ! a prisoner and nothing to do. The 
Convent cows, unwatched and grazing freely over 
a large pasture, filled me with envy; I longed to 



46 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

be a cow or a bird or a spider or an ant, — any- 
one of the happy creatures at liberty around me. 
In fact, I was a doll-less child for the first time in 
my life, — which is quite as bad as being a dogless 
man, — and 1 actually mourned for my waxen 
Claribel us Kachel mourneth .for her children. 
Had I only been a Junior, I could, I thought, in 
some way purchase a right of adoption in some 
one of their darlings. 

After tea there was another hour of profound 
silence enjoined while the Nuns were at the Ves- 
per service. My soul thrills as I recall the mel- 
ancholy beauty of that hour. Motionless, I watched 
the slow setting of the sun, lighting up the broad 
summer landscape with a golden glow and darken- 
ing it with purple shadows; and when the sun 
had dropped behind the distant hills, and the 
changing opal sky was fading into dull gray, the 
voices of the Sisters rose solemnly from the Chapel 
below, and the faint scent of incense mingled with 
the breath of the white roses trained against its 
walls, and floated into the open window on the 
evening air. 



MOMENTS OF FREEDOM. 47 

The Convent, with its broad halls, long galler- 
ies, and massive walls, put me in mind of palaces 
about which I had read. The great music-room 
with its piano, the handsome gilt harp and guitars 
dressed in uniforms of pink ribbons, seemed to me 
elegant enough to be used for a meeting of Trou- 
badours. I took several music-lessons there of 
Sister Mary John, the unfortunate Mother- Assist- 
ant, who showed, by her nervous, excitable man- 
ner and flushed nice, that she had not yet recovered 
entirely from that terrible brain-fever. 

How I enjoyed the little moments of transit 
between the school-room and music-room as I 
went to my lessons and returned from them ! for 
they were my only periods of solitude and freedom 
from supervision, — I used to linger on the stairs, 
jump up and down them three at a time, dance 
wildly, and even make faces by way of making the 
most of my liberty, — and I felt an ever-growing 
desire to take advantage of it for the gratification 
of my curiosity. The pupils were positively for- 
bidden to visit any part of the building save the 
halls appropriated to their use ; and few, even of 



48 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

those who had been at the school for years, had 
ever attempted to break this rule. Yet legends 
of adventurous spirits were handed down from 
year to year, and circulated among the new girls, 
and I had overheard just enough to excite my 
imagination. " Such and such girls had made 
their way — oh ! — as far as — um — urn — urn 

— (whispering) — and seen — gracious, they had 
seen the strangest things, for instance, um — um 

— um — (whispers again) and had heard — 0, 
they were so frightened ! — such tones — um — 
um — strange voices — um — um — cries, — groans, 

— sobs — " (tragic whispers, shuddering, expres- 
sive silence). There was a brick tomb, a very 
large one, at the bottom of the garden, where cer- 
tain Nuns were buried, and about which the girls 
made many surmises, which in time grew into 
dreadful stories, told to new-comers with bated 
breath. 

On my way to the music-room I had to pass 
the foot of the stairs leading to the uppet stories 
of the Convent, which were supposed to be as 
much out of our reach as heaven itself. We were 



A FORBIDDEN CHAMBER. 49 

forbidden to go there ; and, according to school- 
girl logic, that was sufficient proof that wicked- 
ness was enacted there, in Chambers of Horrors. 
I do believe these ridiculous fancies, held by 
Protestant children to account for a novel disci- 
pline which they could not comprehend, obtained 
circulation among certain classes outside the Con- 
vent, and assisted in bringing on the catastrophe 
which destroyed the school. 

When I first crossed the foot of those stairs I 
looked up with straining eyes, and wondered what 
I should see if I had ever the courage to mount 
them. On the next occasion I began to think I 
might find the courage, and on the conclusion of 
my second lesson, when I was to pass those stairs 
for the fourth time, I suddenly resolved to ven- 
ture then and there, and, clasping my hands tightly 
together over my heart, which beat so furiously 
that I could hardly breathe, I flew rather than 
ran up to the first landing, but beyond that point 
I dared not go. However, I saw quite enough to 
give my excited imagination a rude shock, and 
to bring common-sense to the front. The stairs 
3 D 



50 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

ended in another broad hall, with sundry dormi- 
tories opening upon it, through whose half-open 
doors I could see rows of little white beds just 
like our own. Even in that moment I was im- 
pressed with the exquisite neatness that prevailed, 
and the spotless purity of the carpetless floors; 
for, as in all foreign convents, the floors were made 
of hard wood or solid stone, and were uncovered. 
Dead silence reigned, and solitude, for the inhab- 
itants of that upper story were all busy in their 
various duties below. Small pictures in black 
frames and crucifixes hung on the white walls 
above the bed-heads ; no other furniture was vis- 
ible ; a clock ticked loudly in the silence, and 
seemed to address me personally with a stern " Go 
away, go away, go away ! " and down stairs again 
I flew, well rewarded for my temerity, had I been 
old enough to know it, by the wholesome disbe- 
lief that I began to feel, after this experience, in 
the abominable stories whispered about among 
the girls, partly because their lives of unnatural 
seclusion gave them little else to talk about and 
deprived them of any other excitement. 



RED-HAIRED SUSANNE. 51 

In our various processions through the main 
hall of the building, wc always passed the great 
double doors of the Chapel, which opened upon it. 
Sometimes those doors would be ajar, giving us a 
glimpse of the interior, where some one of the 
Catholic pupils was often seen kneeling in pen- 
ance. A Canadian girl named Susanne P 

was frequently punished in this manner for giving 
way to sudden outbursts of angry violence, with- 
out apparent reason save that she had an unusual 
quantity of red hair. This was supposed to be 
the infallible accompaniment of a temper, and in- 
deed might well be the cause of it, as in those 
days the owner of red hair was alternately snubbed 
and ridiculed for that misfortune by her brown- 
haired and black-haired companions. " Red Hair," 
this was the name given by unappreciative school- 
girls to Susanne's magnificent locks, by which 
even I, ignorant little thing as I was, well remem- 
ber her. She had large black eyes, which, by 
contrast with her hair, added to the singularity 
of her appearance. These eyes she was accus- 
tomed during school -hours to fix on vacancy, 



52 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

wherever that may be, while she would clasp 
round her knees a pair of very white hands spot- 
ted with freckles, which were, as I noticed, just 
the color of her hair. She would forget the book 
she w r as studying, and let it slip gradually off her 
knee till it fell to the floor with a loud bang, 
which often made Sister Mary Austin jump in the 
middle of a yawn, and drew upon Susanne the 
attention of the whole school. She was a silent, 
reserved girl, except when she fell into one of her 
sudden passions, and on such occasions she had a 
way of hiding herself behind the waves of her 
bright hair, which had an electric sparkle and 
vitality singularly in contrast with her pale still 
face. Every hair seemed instinct with separate 
life, and her great eyes fairly caught a dull glow 
from the influence of this superb dievelure. I 
could not forbear looking at her compassionately 
when I saw her so often in the Chapel kneeling 
motionless as marble under this living hair ; and, 
lowly as her head was bent, I thought I could 
detect a glance of recognition sliding from under 
her eyelids. 



BIG II MASS. 53 



Sundays we all attended High Mass in the 
Chapel, the Protestant girls taking their Bibles 
with them, which they were supposed by their 
parents to read diligently during the services. I 
am sorry to say the only diligent readers I saw 
were those who had contrived to conceal story- 
books between the covers. A low partition sep- 
arated ns from the main body of the Chapel, and 
behind a similar partition on the opposite side was 
the apartment occupied by the Nuns during Mass. 
Heavy crimson curtains, slightly parted, effectu- 
ally concealed them, filling up most of the space 
above the partition. But, though unseen, their ex- 
quisite singing ravished the ear, — so ravished my 
childish senses that I should not have been sur- 
prised had a troop of angels swooped out upon 
us from between the parted curtains, with white 
wings brushing the crimson, looking perhaps like 
the beautiful St. Ursula over the altar. 

I was not old enough to appreciate the value of 
the solid silver candlesticks and vessels that fur- 
nished the altar, or the silver-gilt communion-ser- 
vice used by the Bishop at High Mass. The older 



54 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

girls had much to say on the subject, and they 
were never tired o£jidmiring the elegance of the 
lace made by the Nuns for their Chapel, and the 
splendor of the Bishop's robes embroidered by 
them. But 0, the pictures ! Really valuable 
works by foreign artists hung on the walls, so 
titterly unlike any pictures I had ever seen that I 
could not look at them as such. The genius that 
had breathed a soul into them, such as a grown- 
up amateur would have appreciated as the perfec- 
tion of art, informed them to my inexperienced 
eye with an almost real life and breath, that awed 
me inexpressibly. I remember one full-length fig- 
ure of some virgin saint, with flowing robes and 
hair, and a face of perfect loveliness, glowing with 
ecstatic devotion, as her eyes, piercing heaven for 
" ten thousand perpendicular miles," — such was 
my childish thought, — seemed to hold in their 
gaze a something not even to be guessed at. 
While I was losing myself in this picture, I won- 
dered how the girls about me could fidget, and 
sigh, and complain in whispers of the discomfort 
of their kneeling positions. Where else could one 



THE DYING MONK. 55 

be but on one's knees in presence of that picture 1 
was my feeling. I remember specially only one 
more painting, probably because it was so com- 
plete a contrast to the other. It was the head of 
an aged ascetic dying in the wilderness, starved to 
skin and bone, with shrivelled arms and claw-like 
fingers, with which he hardly had strength to 
clasp a crucifix against his ragged robe. There 
was a skull in the picture, — much resembling 
the lean head of the Monk, — cross-bones, a great 
book, and the mouth of a cave. His eyes, too, 
were raised upward, but " dear," thought I, 
" lie only wants the Lord to see the red rings 
about them, and their livid sockets." These pic- 
tured saints seemed to my imagination endowed 
with a mysterious life of their own, and I always 
fancied the chapel inhabited by their moving 
figures when the doors were shut and locked, as 
they often w r ere when we passed by in procession. 
There was a great difference in the behavior of 
the Protestant and Catholic girls at chapel. Many 
of the former made it their business to assume 
indifference to the services, for which reason, per- 



56 THE BURNING OF TEE CONVENT. 

haps, the few Catholics felt called upon to show a 
more than usual devotion thereat. A beautiful 
Creole girl, the oldest of the Catholic pupils, 
set them a perfect example in that respect. I 
suppose I noticed her particularly on account of 

the contrast she presented to Susanne P , who 

was her neighbor at Sunday morning Mass, — 
for the Catholic girls liked to be together, — 
kneeling so close to her side that her bright locks 
touched the lovely Creole's dusky cheek and her 
bands of ebon hair. But Susanne's eyes, with 
their sparks of fire, were often fixed in upward 

glance, while Louisa M (that was the name 

of the West-Indian beauty) kept hers hidden 
under their black lashes. 

I began to know the names of those girls who 

most interested me. Ellen and Eosamond M ■ 

were Catholics, sisters ; Ellen ros}^ laughing, 
brilliant in health and spirits, and poor Rosamond 
sullen, pitted with small-pox, with a harelip and 
no palate, so that her imperfect discordant speech 
was a foil to her sister's joyous sweetness of voice. 
There were four sisters named W (two in 



DANCING DAY. 57 



the Senior and two in the Junior class), — four 
sizes of pink frocks, and all the wearers pretty. 
The oldest was handsome, and was beginning to 
know it and to look forward to leaving school and 
wearing something better than a pink frock. 
The second was a grave, quiet girl, a great favor- 
ite with the Nuns ; she already showed a strong 
leaning to Catholicism, and at last married a gen- 
tleman of that faith. The younger ones, unless 
by special permission, only saw their sisters to 
speak with them on dancing days, when Elizabeth 
settled their sashes, and Penelope gave them good 
advice ; for on that day the classes were taught 
together. Nearly all dressed in white frocks, and 
a holiday feeling pervaded the school. A certain 

Penelope E w T as one of the prettiest dancers ; 

she chasseed about merrily, with a smile for every 
one she met. She was the motherless daughter 
of an officer, and had lost the use of one eye, 
which was always covered by a green shade. But 
the other was of a lovely laughing violet-blue, and 
its glance, when it met yours, so pleasant that it 
was worth that of any two eyes in the whole 
3* 



58 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

school. One little girl wore a superb net, with 
heavy tassels, all of blue saddler's silk. "Too 
lovely for anything," I thought both her and her 
net, and I wished I could conceal my mop of hair 
under such an elegant appendage. I was some- 
what ashamed of it, as it had lately been cut by 
our maiden aunt, who was in the habit of bringing 
her shears twice a year into our family, and " bar- 
bering " us in an eccentric fashion of her own, 
the heads of both bo} T s and girls looking exactly 
alike when they came from under her hands. She 
was kind enough to pay us a flying visit when she 
heard I w T as about to be sent to school, in order to 
give my hair an extra touch, and she pronounced 
her work a triumph of art, w r hen finished. My 
head was indeed "a unique," as I saw, after com- 
paring it with the heads of my schoolmates, not 
so fortunate as myself in maiden aunts with a 
genius for men's business. I should add, to do 
her justice, that she could "carpenter," paper- 
hang and paint, and once " marbled " her front 
staircase so handsomely that it saved her the 
purchase of a carpet. 



MARIA F AND MARY B . 59 

The little girl with the blue silk net was called 
Anna Augusta ; such an appropriate name, I 
thought, for the owner of that exquisite thing. I 
resolved that if ever Claribel had a sister, she 
should be christened Anna Augusta. 

One lovely girl among the pupils, named Maria 

F , had the face of a young Madonna, with a 

sweet, pure, still expression, that made it a pleas- 
ure for me to look upon her, she seemed so pecu- 
liarly fit to be in a convent. Some of the wild, 
turbulent children seemed entirely out of place 
in a community of nuns, while Maria's looks and 
ways were in perfect harmony with her surround- 
ings ; she might have been the youngest of St. 

Ursula's eleven thousand virgins. Mary B , a 

complete contrast to the placid Maria in manners, 
was the wit of the Senior class. She was as given 
to graceful gestures as a French girl, her panto- 
mime was as expressive as her words ; we always 
opened our mouths, prepared to laugh, whenever 
she opened hers to speak, — even I, the melancholy 
Jacqueline of the class. 

After Mass, on my first Sunday at the Convent, 



60 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

the Superior sent for me to come to her own room, 
whither I was escorted by a Sister, who knocked 
for me on the door. She was graciously invited 
to enter with me, which she did, bending her body 
reverently. I suppose this honor Avas conferred 
on me by way of curing my homesickness, of 
which the Superior had been told. She was very 
gracious to me, presenting me to the Bishop, who 
had just officiated at Mass, and who, without his 
brocade robes stiff with embroidery, looked to me 
like a peacock stripped of his feathers. I am 
afraid my miserable discontent made me very sar- 
castic ; soon, though, I was desperately frightened 
at finding myself in the Presence. The Superior 
was a very portly woman, even stout, but I be- 
lieve I have mentioned that she carried herself 
with royal dignity, and even arrogance. The 
whole household feared her ; she spoke sharply to 
the Nuns, who bowed before her ; the servants 
always approached her with bent head, downcast 
eyes, and hands crossed on their breasts. The 
pupils were taught to rise simultaneously when- 
ever she entered any one of the school-rooms, and 



THE BISHOP'S ADVICE. Gl 

to remain standing while she swept through it, 
and as long as she continued to occupy the seat 
prepared for her at the head of the room, which 
she filled as if it had been a throne. With the 
Bishop alone was she on equal terms, and when, 
on this my visit to her apartment, my fright 
allowed me the use of my senses, it seemed to me 
they were sitting together just like any old lady 
and gentleman, only that they appeared very 
happy in wrangling and contradicting each other, 
— poor things ! except when together they never 
could enjoy the pleasure of disputing, for they 
were despotic sovereigns elsewhere, and nobody 
dared oppose them. Each carried a silver-gilt 
snuff-box, which they presented one to the other 
at intervals, taking friendly pinches of snuff to- 
gether when controversy lulled. There was a 
pause after I had been introduced to the Bishop 
as a new pupil, and had placed myself at his knee, 
by the Superior's order. " This little girl is ridic- 
ulously homesick ; what shall we do with her 1 " 
said she in an admonitory tone, and looking at 
the Bishop as if expecting him to lecture me on 



62 THE BURNING OF TEE CONVENT. 

my folly. I dared not lift my eyes to his face, 
and in the silence that followed, the ticking of 
the mantel clock and the beating of my heart 
seemed to be racing with each other. At length 
the Bishop spoke, and sharply. " Take your fin- 
gers out of your mouth," said he, " and go to Sis- 
ter Mary Francis, and ask her to tie up your 
frock." Relieved, but ashamed, I crept up to the 
Nun who had brought me to the Superior's room ; 
she hastened to obey the command, and drew the 
string so tightly that it broke, and I was allowed 
to make my escape in her company. My unfortu- 
nate sloping shoulders, w r hich were always letting 
my frocks drop out of place, and getting me into 
trouble, for once did me a good turn. I was even 
glad to get back to my Sunday lesson, the " getting 
by heart," as the phrase goes, of a chapter in the 
Testament. Poor Sister Mary Austin found Sun- 
day anything but a holiday, for it was her duty 
to "hear" every girl in the Senior class recite a 
chapter; her religious opinions, I suppose, were 
considered to be so firmly fixed as to be proof 
against the influence of the heretical Bible. In- 



ONCE I LA UGHED. C)3 

deed, as the girls hesitated, stumbled, or drawled 
through their recitations while she prompted or 
reproved or waited or yawned, I thought she must 
get such a surfeit of our Bible as fairly to dislike 
it. I used to wonder at the constancy of Sister 
Mary Austin's yawns, till I heard the girls allud- 
ing to midnight masses, four o'clock matins, and 
mysterious penances practised at night. 

Once, and only once during that homesick fort- 
night at the Convent, I laughed aloud, and it hap- 
pened in this wise. As in melancholy mood I was 
sitting on the grass during afternoon recreation in 
the garden, gazing vaguely towards the Convent, I 
suddenly spied, outside an upper window, a black 
object that hung suspended between heaven and 
earth. I walked towards it, and it resolved itself 
into Sister Mary Bernard cleaning the window on 
the outside. She was a lay Sister, a servant who 
had taken the vows ; there were several of them. 
There she was, astride on a buck-board, with her 
feet in old shoes down at the heel, pointing to- 
ward heaven, and a great length of black worsted 
stocking visible, embroidered with darns and open- 



64 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

worked with holes. Her rusty black veil streamed 
out behind in the breeze, like a banner wildly 
waving ; her white forehead-band was dragged dis- 
reputably over one eye ; and her rosary went 
bump, bump against the buck-board as she ener- 
getically brandished a towel aloft. 

I remember but little about the Nuns ; a few 
of their names I picked up, but to my unaccus- 
tomed eye they all looked alike. There was but 
one novice in a white veil, whom we pitied pro- 
foundly, for she was in the last stages of consump- 
tion, her face as white as her veil, and her hollow 
cough echoed about the house. She w 7 as young, 
pretty, and so anxious to mortify her poor dying 
flesh that she persisted in fulfilling her duties to 
the utmost limit of her strength, and I have often 
seen her totter and catch hold of the table to sup- 
port herself, as she waited on the little ones in 
the refectory. 

And now a ray, or rather a whole sun, of joy 
lighted up my unhappy life, to my great aston- 
ishment. By the rules of the school the pupils 
were allowed to go home and spend Sunday once 



/ A3! SENT FOR. 65 

a month ; therefore to the end of my first month 
at school I was looking forward with inexpressible 
longing. The first fortnight had dragged itself 
away, and I was beginning to count the days of 
the second, with the feeling of one who has clam- 
bered with difficulty to the top of a hill, and pre- 
pares hopefully to run down to the bottom again, 
knowing that the distance, though the same, will 
seem shorter as one's steps are accelerated. I had 
received no visit from home during the whole long 
fortnight, which made me sad, as other girls were 
daily sent for to see their friends. My heart used 
to beat fast with hope when the servant whose 
business it w T as to summon pupils to the parlor 
appeared at the school-room door, and then sink 
w T ith disappointment when another name than 
mine was called. But quite early one Saturday 
morning my turn came, and " Miss Louisa God- 
dard" was asked for. How musically Bridget's 
brogue sounded in pronouncing my name ! I was 
so dizzy with delight that I could hardly walk 
out of the school-room, and the girls nodded and 
looked at me kindly as I passed the rows of desks. 



66 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

Indeed, had my stay in the Convent been pro- 
longed, I should of course have recovered from 
homesickness, made friends with the girls of my 
class, and been very happy. On this Saturday I 
certainly was so, for my father, whom I found in 
the parlor, told me that, notwithstanding the rule 
of the school, the Superior had given him permis- 
sion to take me home to spend Sunday. I sup- 
pose he had had a conference with Sister Mary 
Benedict, the lovely Nun whose business it was 
to fascinate visitors, and the ruling powers had 
decided that an early visit home would assuage 
my homesickness, I being an unusual sufferer 
from that disease. I know I was very grateful 
to the Superior for the permission, as I flew up 
stairs through the solitary halls and dressed in 
the empty dormitory. 

What happy days were the Saturday and Sun- 
day I passed at home ! With what absorbed 
attention my little brothers and sisters, from ten 
years old to two, listened to my school experiences, 
ranged about me as I sat on the pump-platform 
in the garden, — a flight of short steps of which 



TWO HAPPY DAYS AT HOME. G7 

I was the top-stair. With what solicitude I nursed 
and fed my doll, waking her from her fortnight's 
nap, and how pleased I was when my black rab- 
bit, to whom I made an immediate visit, loped 
up in a friendly way, and wiggled his nose up 
and down against my hand. A body-guard of 
children escorted me to the stable, — the summer 
baby-house, which was under a convenient pile 
of planks, for the benefit of the dolls' health, who 
were then supposed to be boarding in the country, 
— and to the purple-plum tree, where I was made 
to sit down, while my sister Lucretia tore her pin- 
afore in climbing up to the most eligible shaking 
place. My mother tried to talk to me about my 
clothes, and my father about my studies, but I 
am afraid I did not pay much attention to their 
words of wisdom. Monday morning came only 
too soon ; it seemed impossible I should have 
been at home two days, and I felt that when T 
returned to the Convent my visit would only 
appear like one of those vivid dreams of home 
that were at once my solace and my misery. I 
assured my mother of this, with tears rolling 



G8 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

down my cheeks, and I begged her at least to 
let me take my doll back with me, as a proof 
that I had been awake. I told her I was not a 
bit ashamed to be the only girl in the Senior class 
who played with a doll ; and she at last consented. 
Then I vowed to my dear Claribel to be so devoted 
to her that she should never suffer as I had from 
homesickness, even though she should have no 
companion in the Senior class, and should be for- 
bidden by the rules to get acquainted with any 
doll in the Junior class, however desirable. My 
sister Anne generously lent me a small trunk in 
which to pack ClaribeFs clothes, we both lament- 
ing that there w T as no time to put her into uni- 
form, and in return I gave Anne my buff kitten, 
in whose character, as she developed into cathood, 
I was in truth disappointed. In the most slovenly 
manner she had already dirtied and torn her whole 
month's wardrobe of ribbons, that I had so care- 
fully prepared for her; and, worse still, she had 
caught a mouse, and showed a determination to 
catch more, — a thing for which in her early youth 
I had hoped she had a special antipathy. 



DANGER THREATENS. GO 

On the whole, I made my second journey to 
school with a lighter heart than I bore in my 
bosom on the first, Claribel clasped in my arms, 
and my feet resting* on her trunk as my father 
and I again drove from Dorchester to Charlestown 
in the chaise. He had been strongly advised not 
to allow me to return, some of his friends assur- 
ing him that the dislike and suspicion which had 
long been growing against the Convent had at last 
reached positive hatred, and that its destruction 
was openly threatened. But my father still 
laughed these apprehensions to scorn, and was 
totally incredulous of danger to the Convent. I 
had listened with great interest to these conver- 
sations between my father and his friends, and I 
quite understood them, for at school I had heard 
the older pupils talking the matter over eagerly, 
and I was familiar with the story of Sister Mary 
John's escape and recapture. I had besides " as- 
sisted" at various disputes held among the girls 
about that notorious book, " Six Months in a Con- 
vent," and the character of its author. Sectarian 
spirit ran very high, — the Catholic girls vehe- 



70 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

mently denouncing her, and declaring her book to 
be one long falsehood, while a few bigoted Protes- 
tants were sure there was much to be said on her 
side. Most of the pupils were quite indifferent, 
however, to the subject, save that they enjoyed 
the fun of listening to the quarrel. 

So on this my return journey to the Convent, 
I was not surprised to find my father stopped on 

the way by an old acquaintance, Mr. C , whom 

we met driving rapidly out of town on his way 
to our house, his errand being to warn my father 
of the certainty of danger to the Convent. When 
he passed us, he made a sign to my father to halt, 
sprang out of his vehicle, laid his hand on the 
reins, and was almost ready to force my father to 
turn about, while he rapidly and eagerly repeated 
to him facts that had come to his knowledge re- 
specting the designs of certain ill-conditioned per- 
sons on the Ursuline Convent. I heard the word 
"mob" used by him several times, and the assur- 
ance that the very Monday night just approaching 
had been fixed upon by the "mob" for the de- 
struction of the "Nunnery," as they called it. 



THE CONVENT IN COMMOTION. 71 

How I did hope my father would listen to Mr. 

C and turn back ! Not that the idea of a 

mob frightened me, though I had read of the 
French Revolution, and my mother had described 
the Bread Riots in England, which she had her- 
self witnessed ; but it would be so nice to go home 
again and surprise the children ! Still my father 
shook his head incredulously, declared there was 
no possible danger to be feared for the Convent, 

and Mr. C left him very reluctantly, after 

using some strong language of disapproval, at 
which papa only laughed. So on we drove again, 
and I was somewhat consoled for my disappoint- 
ment in not returning home by feeling myself a 
sort of heroine. 

And on reaching Mount Benedict I found the 
whole school in commotion. Instead of silence 
and emptiness in the halls, girls were actually 
passing through them ; there was no studying in 
the Senior school-room, but the older girls drew 
crowding round Sister Mary Austin talking eagerly, 
while the younger ones pressed close behind to 
listen, or followed their own devices at their desks. 



72 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

I had expected to be told to put my doll into my 
trunk till afternoon recreation, but no notice was 
taken of her, and I hastened to hide her in my 
desk, and put her trunk underneath it. Alas, 
alas, dearest Claribel ! little did I think that I 
was looking on your face for the last time, as I 
tenderly covered it with a bit of blotting-paper, 
and hid it behind "Blair's Rhetoric." As soon 
as these maternal duties were finished, I joined 
the circle about Sister Mary Austin, and learned 
that great events had happened in my absence. 
Floating rumors of designs against the Convent 
had of course reached the Nuns from time to time, 
but as the Bishop disbelieved utterly in them, of 
course so did these poor helpless women. But on 
the very Saturday which began my little holiday 
the Superior had received formal notice that she 
was in danger, — she, her community, and the 
building they occupied, — from the Selectmen of 
Charlestown, and in a few hours afterward they 
sent up a committee, chosen from their number, 
to consult with the Superior as to what should 
be done for her defence, and to ask permission to 









THE SUPERIOR INDIGNANT. ,73 

examine the vaults of the building. They wished 
to be able to contradict the report, generally 
believed, that there were cells under the Convent, 
used for the punishment of the refractory Nuns, 
and also secret places of torment and iniquity. 
The Superior failed to appreciate the kind motives 
of these worthy Selectmen ; she was furiously in- 
dignant at the abominable stories in circulation 
about her and her community, and when their 
committee were admitted to her presence, she 
overwhelmed them with a torrent of invectives, 
refused to allow them to examine her cellars, and 
if she had possessed the power, she would have 
scourged them from her gate. She appeared to 
hold them responsible for stories which they only 
repeated. But Sister Mary John, the Mother 
Assistant, received the deputation of Selectmen in 
a very different spirit. She considered herself the 
innocent cause of the reports that were blasting 
the reputation of the Convent, and perhaps bring- 
ing destruction upon it ; and she besought the 
Superior to allow her to explain the facts relative 
to her illness and its results, in presence of the 



74 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

committee. She did so with all her eloquence, 
and with such an air of truth that the gentlemen 
appeared to believe her entirely, and they prom- 
ised to publish a card in Monday morning's papers, 
explaining the circumstances that had led to the 
story of the escaped Nun, recaptured and brought 
back to the cells of the underground Convent 
against her will, which, as they now believed, and 
as she assured them, had their origin in the cir- 
cumstances of her illness. 

On Monday morning this statement appeared 
in the papers, but coupled with an account of the 
reception given the committee of Charlestown 
Selectmen by the Superior of the Convent, and 
her refusal to allow them to examine the cellars of 
the building for themselves. She had received 
visits also from other gentlemen, — some dictated 
by friendship, others by curiosity, — and her vio- 
lent language and arrogant bearing had displeased 
many even of her friends ; while others applauded 
her courage. Of course, exaggerated accounts of 
her behavior quickly circulated among those who 
were looking for every pretext to destroy at least 



NINE HOURS DAILY SILENCE. 



her position, if not herself and the institution over 
which she ruled. She must have raised many ene- 
mies against herself during the years of her abso- 
lute and domineering rule on Mount Benedict. 

There was no school during that Monday morn- 
ing after my return; confusion and excitement 
reigned during the hours usually devoted to strict 
silence. For nine hours daily silence was enforced 
among the pupils, while I was among them ; be- 
side observing it during school-hours, we were 
obliged to do so at meals, at matin and vesper 
hours, and in the school-room, except when half- 
hours of recreation were allowed by the presiding 
teacher. It seemed to me that I should never 
become accustomed to those nine daily hours of 
silence, but the old pupils consoled themselves 
under their monotony by looking forward to the 
fete-days, the holidays, and half-holidays, which 
were frequent during term-time. And a deal of 
whispering was done by the experienced scholars, 
who seemed to enjoy forbidden " communication " 
as it was called, carried on under fear of discovery, 
better than if it had been permitted. 



76 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

I could not help noticing how much the poor 
Sisters were excited on that Monday morning by 
the condition of things, and how, after all, they 
seemed to enjoy it. Sister Mary Austin forgot to 
yawn, and actually laughed aloud as the pupils 
caricatured the embarrassment of the Selectmen 
on their Saturday visit, and their awkward man- 
ner of filing in and out of the doors. Sounds of 
similar mirth came through the open windows 
from the other school-rooms, — it was like an 
unexpected holiday. Even unwholesome excite- 
ments are welcome to people living in such abso- 
lute, dull seclusion as did the Nuns, and in their 
ignorance and innocence they could not foresee 
the possibility of real danger, when they had done 
absolutely nothing to deserve it. As for the Su- 
perior, her strong will, violent temper, and natural 
courage made her not unwilling to dwell on the 
idea of danger which she felt herself strong enough 
to meet, and she consoled the more timid of the 
Sisters by telling them that there were Catholic 
Irishmen enough in Boston to defend them in case 
they were attacked. 



AN EXCITED DANCING-SCHOOL. 77 

On Monday afternoon Mrs. Barrymore the dan- 
cing-mistress appeared as usual, full of sympathy 
with the Sisters, and indignation at the abomina- 
ble stories in circulation against the Convent, some 
of which had got into the papers, besides the oft- 
repeated legend of the escaped Nun. There was 
much controversy between the friends and ene- 
mies of the Convent as to the truth of these 
stories, so Mrs. Barrymore said ; also as to wheth- 
er the Boston truckmen would dare to carry out 
their threats of attacking the building, and 
whether such violence would or would not be 
excusable under the circumstances. Mrs. Barry- 
more, herself a Catholic, laughed at the idea of a 
mob, and comforted the Nuns with strong expres- 
sions of her disbelief. In her excitement she 
taught the pupils that afternoon con amove, and 
the pupils, equally excited, never " took their 
steps " more vigorously. Never w T ere higher jumps 
taken in the assemblies, longer runs in the ckasses, 
wider circles in the Pas le Basque. The lay Sis- 
ters whose business it was to dress us sent us all 
to the dancing-hall in our very best clothes; I 



78 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

suppose it was their way of expressing excitement. 
The Superior came in to look upon us, as was 
her habit on great occasions when new dances had 
been learned, or when a favorite pupil was to per- 
form the Highland Fling or the Cachucha before 
her admiring schoolmates. We stopped dancing, 
and turned towards her, courtesying, as she moved 
among us with gracious dignity, and seated her- 
self at the head of the room. A waltz-quadrille 
followed, in which I acquitted myself so well that 
Mrs. Barrymore patted me on the shoulder with 
her usual phrase of commendation, " Excellent 
well, my dear." But yet another honor was in 
store for me. While I was still blushing with 
pleasure at this word of praise from the strict 
Mrs. Barrymore, a little Junior ran up breathless 
to tell me that I had been selected to fan the 
Superior that afternoon, and to bring me into the 
Presence. 

Behold me, then, mounted on the high stool of 
honor at the Superior's side, very warm myself 
after dancing, but afraid to direct the fan in such 
a way as to take from her any air for the cooling 



/ FAN THE SUPERIOR. 



of my own face. I don't know why she chose to 
give me the privilege of fanning her ; I could not 
have been a favorite in so short a time, dull and 
unhappy as I had been from homesickness too. 
Perhaps she thought it could not outlast this 
mark of attention, even if my visit to her room on 
a previous Sunday had foiled to cure me. Per- 
haps she wished to make friends with the Mam- 
mon of Unrighteousness at this period of her life, 
and thought my father's influence might stand 
her in good stead if she could win his support by 
graciousness to me. But dear me ! — it just oc- 
curs to me, — how strange to find myself account- 
ing so gravely and at such length for so trivial a 
circumstance ! It shows the strength of that con- 
ventual influence which managed to impress even 
upon the newest pupils the vital importance of 
the Superior's every act ; so that to this day I 
find myself acknowledging it. 

Well, after all, I found my place at the Supe- 
rior's side on that Monday afternoon a very inter- 
esting one, especially as she often forgot me and 
my fan altogether, so that I had many opportuni- 



80 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

ties of resting my arm or fanning myself furtively. 
In the intervals of dancing she would send for 
certain of the older pupils — she never beckoned 
to any one — to come near her, and she held with 
them animated conversations in regard to the cir- 
cumstances in which she and the Convent were 
placed. She ridiculed unsparingly not only those 
who believed the reports against her, but those 
who dared to tell her that she was in danger; 
particularly the Selectmen of Charlestown, and 
their deputation, whom she called vulgarians, ple- 
beians, shop-keepers, and what not. She gloried 
in her haughty reception of them, and in her re- 
fusal to meet their wishes ; and the girls, flattered 
by her condescension in talking to them as equals, 
naturally sympathized and agreed w^ith her, and 
those who w T ere able outdid her in sarcasm and 
vehemence. Mrs. Barrymore, too, came up occa- 
sionally, wiping her warm face, and added her 
word of approval to the indignation-meeting round 
the Superior's chair. 

In the midst of this talk the portress was seen 
approaching, passing through the girls with bowed 



THE CIIARLESTOWN SELECTMAN. 81 

head .and clasped hands, and at last, bending low 
before the Superior, " Another Selectman from 
Charlestown was in the parlor," she said, in the 
subdued voice used by the servants in addressing 
their Sovereign Lady, " and requested to see the 
Superior on urgent business." The " Mother Ab- 
bess," to use another of her titles, flamed up at 
once, and after scolding the portress roundly, — 
" For you know I ordered you not to admit 
another messenger from Charlestown on any ac- 
count," she said, — she ordered her to go back 
and shut the door in the man's face, if nothing 
else would make him go. The portress made no 
answer, of course, for the Superior never allowed 
such an act of independence, but it was evident 
she retired reluctantly to fulfil this command. 
Soon she reappeared, still moving humbly forward, 
but too much agitated to preserve her usual air 
of submission. " Madame, the man refuses to go, 
and pray hear me, Madame ! " she supplicated, 
seeing the Superior about to burst into a rage ; 
"he says this Convent is really in great danger, 
that even this very night it may be attacked, — - 
4* f 



82 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

he says the Selectmen have sent him to get your 
permission to go into the cellars and examine 
them thoroughly, so that an affidavit can be made 
for the evening papers, — there is nothing wrong 
there, Madame, and the Selectmen want to swear 
positively that they know it, that they have seen 
for themselves, — 'the man says it may be too late, 
even now, but unless such a card is published this 
evening they won't answer for the consequences, 
and it is all they can do for us." I don't remem- 
ber the exact words, bat this is the substance of 
what the poor frightened portress managed to say, 
in spite of several violent interruptions from the 
Superior. Even then that infatuated woman was 
obdurate. " Stop whimpering, you fool ! " she 
cried, in her imperious way, — "I won't allow my 
premises to be searched. I 'm not afraid of any- 
body, — the Bishop is my adviser when I need 
one. The Selectmen of Charlestown are old wo- 
men, — no doubt they 're afraid. It is their busi- 
ness to protect us, wdiatever happens, and without 
any conditions, and send the man back to tell 
them so." 



WANTS TO SEARCH THE CELLAR. 83 

And now Sister Mary John, tall, thin, angular, 
entered the room, and hurried up to the Superior, 
more quickly than etiquette warranted. She was 
weeping, though she made a great effort to com- 
mand her tears and to control her trembling voice, 
so that she might speak with proper submission 
of manner. She implored the Superior not to 
send away this man, who came in a friendly 
spirit ; something she added about the value even 
of one friend in the midst of a community of ene- 
mies, and begged to be allowed to accompany the 
visitor to the cellar of the building, and to show 
him, herself, every part of the basements that he 
desired to see. I remember the violent opposition 
of the Superior to this request, and a vehement, 
hurried argument between her and Sister Mary 
John ; but the latter at length prevailed ; indeed, 
she was in so very nervous a condition that it was 
hardly prudent to refuse her. She hurried away 
in an eager, flurried manner, her eyes swollen 
with crying, her nose red, — and a large nose is 
the only feature of her face I distinctly remember, 
— and wringing her pocket-handkerchief between 



84 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

her hands. Then came a scene of confusion : the 
Superior suddenly rose and followed the Mother 
Assistant; the school, disturbed by the unusual 
interruption, broke up in a hurry ; some of the 
Sisters appeared among us, greatly excited ; some 
of the pupils ran into the main hall, others 
crowded out upon a balcony overlooking the usual 
door of entrance. A degree of order was at last 
restored, and we all flocked into our usual school- 
rooms. Here a hubbub of voices rose, the girls 
describing to Sister Mary Austin, and commenting 
to one another on what had just passed. It 
seems that the Superior, after leaving the dancing- 
hall so suddenly, overtook Sister Mary John on 
her way to the main cellar door, lantern in hand, 
and accompanied by the Selectman, and, revoking 
the permission she had given, she positively for- 
bade her to go a step farther. She snatched the 
lantern from the Mother Assistant, thrust it into 
the hand of her unlucky companion, flung open 
the cellar door, and pointed down the stairs with 
a peremptory gesture. " There, sir," she cried, 
" if you want to play the spy in my house, you 



HE DECLINES THE JOB. 85 

shall do it alone. I won't allow any one of the 
Sisters to enter that cellar on your account. Go 
down, sir, with your lantern, and look about at 
your leisure, — there is no man here to prevent 
yon." The poor citizen from Charlestown hesi- 
tated, stepped forward, the gulf below yawned dark 
as Erebus, he stepped back again ; and at last, 
fairly daunted by the Superior's eye, he suddenly 
put down the lantern, and hurried out of the 
building as fast as he could. The Superior's 
laugh of derision followed him, and it was echoed 
by the girls, who had crowded into the hall to 
witness the proceedings. Probably the poor man 
drew a breath of relief as he prepared to walk 
down the avenue, after leaving the Convent ; he 
was seen to stop and mop his face, as he emerged 
from the door, with a yellow bandanna handker- 
chief, — another object of ridicule for the girls. 
But his troubles were not yet over; he was as- 
sailed with a volley of sarcastic remarks by the 
pupils, who had rushed out upon the balcony to 
watch his departure. Allowed, for the first time 
in their experience at the Convent, perfect free- 



86 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

dom of speech and of action, they felt bound to 

take the part of the Sisters who thus indulged 

them, and they were indeed encouraged by those 

poor unreasoning women — big children themselves 

— to give their tongues full liberty. " He 's afraid, 

he 's afraid, — he dares n% he dares r£t" cried some. 

" He 's tumbled into the ash-heap ; see how pale he 

is ! " "He was n't afraid, he did go down, and he 

saw a ghost, and that makes him pale," screamed 

others. " See his pocket-handkerchief, it 's turned 

yellow with fright," cried a shrill voice. One pupil 

of a literary turn fired this parting shot after the 

victim of these exquisite witticisms : — 

" Curiosity came from Heaven : 
Its power selectmen knew ! " 

" Who wrote that ? " asked an admiring friend 
of this literary young lady afterwards, in the 
school-room. " Why, don't you know 1 " replied 
the other with an air; "the man that wrote the 
First Class Book, of course. I got it out of that." 
Poor Sister Mary Austin was bewildered with de- 
light and surprise, as the girls buzzed about her, 
telling her how they had tormented and put down 



WHAT THE GIRLS SAID. 87 

" that horrid man " with these impertinences ; she 
wondered at the ready wit of her pupils. 

How well I remember all that happened on 
that Monday ! As I had not taken any part in 
the martyrdom of the unfortunate Selectman, and 
had cudgelled my brains in vain to get up some 
remark that should be thought worth listening to 
in the general fire of wit, I remained unnoticed 
in the crowd of tall, eager girls, and went about 
from group to group, attentive to every word that 
was uttered. The report that the Convent was 
to be att-acked that very night by a mob had 
spread through the whole school, causing a vast 
excitement, but no real belief. " Of course," one 
girl would say, "my papa, who lives in Boston, 
must know all about it, and he would never let 
me stay here if such a dreadful thing was going 
to happen." "Neither would my aunt Jane," 
"Nor my grandmother either," "Nor uncle Ned," 
cried one and another, and this seemed to be the 
opinion of all the girls old enough to reason. 
"How nice it would be," exclaimed one of the 
younger girls, " if all our folks in Boston would 



88 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

club together and charter the Charlestown stage, 
and send for a lot of us to go home to-night ! " 

One of her schoolmates, Katie L , laughed 

derisively. " My mamma would send her own 
private carriage if she thought there was any 
danger," said Katie, who was a bit of a snob. 
" Well, what is there odd in my thinking of the 
Charlestown stage," said the first speaker, "when 
we have been hearing the noise of carriage-wheels 
outside, ever since 'dancing' was over'? Just as 
it was on Coronation Day, when the stage was 
coming and going till dark ! " " That 's true," 
remarked another. " I never knew the Superior 
to have so much company as she has had this 
afternoon." "I do wish we could see the car- 
riages as well as hear them," said Katie L . 

" I dare say my mamma has been here in her car- 
riage this very day, for she and the Superior are 
great friends, you know." 

While she was speaking I noticed the lovely 

Creole, Louisa M , lolling indolently against 

a desk, on the top of which Susanne P was 

perched cross-legged, her hands clasped round her 



LOUISA AND S US ANNE. 89 

knees as usual. They were both listening and 
saying nothing, these girls from the extreme 
north and south, whose friends were too far away 
to come to their aid, were it necessary. I remem- 
ber, because it was a deviation from the customary 
uniform, that Louisa was dressed in a buff crape, 
made low in the neck, with a surplice waist, as 
was the fashion then, in which she looked charm- 
ingly, and a heavy gold chain, with a cross at- 
tached, was clasped round her slender throat. 
This she was lazily fingering as she reclined, and 
I noticed the purple discoloration of her almond- 
shaped nails as she did so. " If my mamma 
should send for me in the carriage," continued 

Katie L , who was of a generous nature, " I 

would make room for you two girls," and she 
nodded to Louisa and Susanne, " because all your 
folks are so far off, and we 've got any quantity 
of spare room in our house where you could sleep ; 
would n't that be nice 1 " she added, rather anx- 
iously, as neither of the girls spoke. Louisa did 
not take the trouble to lift her eyelids, heavy with 
their black lashes, but she opened her red lips 



90 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

just wide enough to murmur, iu her slow Spanish 
accent, "It would be mooch trouble, thank you, 
— but I hope noting will happen." But Susanne's 
eyes opened wide, and the light of battle was in 
them, — how they glowed ! In a loud, clear voice 
she first said, "But I would not leave ! " and then 
subsided into her usual silence. 

Here the Superior entered with even more than 
her usual breeziness, hot and excited, but I never 
saw her appear tired. She had just dismissed the 
numerous visitors, some of them parents of pupils, 
who had driven out of Boston late on that warm 
afternoon to assure her, and reassure themselves, 
that there was no danger to be apprehended that 
night, or any other, from the attack of a mob. 
Such a thing as a mob did not exist, and never 
had existed in Boston, nor was there material out 
of which to make one, — such was their unanimous 
conclusion. We hastily prepared to make obei- 
sance to the Superior on this her unusual appear- 
ance among us, but she showed no disposition to 
exact our reverences, falling into easy talk with 
those about her, as if she really felt the need of 



SAGE REFLECTIONS. 91 

our sympathy. In a few minutes she withdrew 
as abruptly as she had entered, as if too nervous 
to remain long quiet in any place. 

I observed a small group of the very oldest 
girls standing together at the end of the room, 
who had been quiet, moderate, and self-contained 
all through that day of uproar and confusion. I 
hastened to join them, half fearing they would 
repulse me, as they seemed to be talking together 
with a confidential air. But they did not ; indeed, 
one of the gravest of the girls made way for me 
to stand at her side, and even allowed me to take 
her hand, looking down upon me with a kind 
smile. I could not quite catch the meaning of 
all that was said, but I perceived that these girls 
disapproved of all that had been said and done 
in the Convent that day. They thought the 
Superior had acted very strangely with regard to 
the Charlestown Selectmen, particularly on that 
afternoon. They said she should have allowed 
Sister Mary John to accompany their deputy in 
his examination of the cellars and basements, — 
treating him politely, as he only came in the in- 



92 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

terests of the Convent, and explaining again to 
him clearly the circumstances relating to the ill- 
ness of the Mother Assistant. They also thought 
that the Superior should have condescended to 
explain to him her relations with the foolish lying 
girl who had written " Six Months in a Convent," 
in such a manner as to insure the facts being laid 
before the public. And they were all disgusted 
with the behavior of the pupils, who had been so 
impertinent after the dancing-lesson, and aston- 
ished that the Sisters should have been so foolish 
and thoughtless as to allow and encourage it. But 
I discovered that they too disbelieved in the com- 
ing mob, for, as one of them observed, her father 
would surely know if anything of the kind was 
to be apprehended, and he would have sent for 
her to come home at once, if it was so. Indeed, 
the pupils, with but few exceptions, big and little, 
wise and foolish, though they liked the excitement 
of talking about it, had no real apprehension of 
danger, feeling sure that their parents and guar- 
dians would never leave them to meet it unpro- 
tected. 



SETTING UP FOR GOODNESS. 93 

Then I drifted away from these sober-talking 

Seniors, and encountered Mary H , of whom 

I had seen little since her exhortation to me 
on the first day of my arrival at school. I had 
observed, however, that she was "naughty" no 
longer, but, on the contrary, that she held a high 
place in her class for "deportment" as well as 
"study," though she was one of the youngest of 
its members. As we were again schoolmates, it 
seemed natural that we should continue to be 
rivals, and in that case that I too, like Miss 
Edgeworth's Jessie, should set up for goodness. I 
had already suffered considerably in trying to do 
this at home, for as the oldest of a large family I 
had been expected to " set a good example " ever 
since the sister next me in age was a baby in long- 
clothes. But even if it should turn out that 

Mary H 's standard of goodness was too high 

for me to reach, I was determined to quarrel with 
her no more, — no, no, we were too old to " get 
mad," or " put out," with each other, and too old 
also to " stump " each other to " cut up shines," 
as Dolly the cook, whom we respectfully ad- 



94 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

dressed as " black lady," used to say. Quarrel- 
ling would be improper at our age, and I resolved 
that we would disagree genteelly, if I found I 
could not keep my amiable resolution. 

So I addressed Mary cordially, and we fell to 
talking on the great topic of the day ; would the 
Convent be attacked b} r a mob, and, if so, would 
the attack be made on that very night? Mary 
and I brought our wits to bear on the question, 
and as I was really anxious to believe in the com- 
ing of the mob, as a way of escape from the Con- 
vent, and as Mary was polite and s} 7 mpathetic, we 
soon talked each other into a firm faith that some- 
thing certainly was going to happen, and most 
likely that very night. And if so, what was the 
best way to meet it 1 What could we do to pre- 
pare for the mob, in case it should come 1 I sug- 
gested going to bed in our clothes ; Mary thought 
that would not be very comfortable, and, besides, 
Sister Mary Austin would be sure to find us out. 
I insisted — at least, if we went to bed dressed, 
we should be all ready to go home in case the 
delightful chance did arrive. Mary suggested a 



SYMPATHY OFFERED. 95 

compromise, — we would take off our frocks, and 
slip our nightgowns on over our petticoats, so that 
we should seem to be all right if Sister Mary 
Austin chanced to look at us. I agreed to this, 
and we promised each other solemnly to carry this 
plan into effect. We shook hands upon it. I 
was in high spirits, feeling somewhat in this way : 
as I could not go home unless I was dressed, it 
ought to follow that if I ivas dressed I should go 
home. 

" Darling Bella " now called Mary away, and I, 
left alone, began to Pas le Basque down the 
school-room, in great sweeps from side to side. 
But my heart reproached me for its own lightness 
wdien I suddenly heard the sound of sobbing, and 
presently noticed that the cover of one of the 
desks was raised, and that the sobs came from be- 
hind it. It was under shelter of the lids of our 
desks that w T e did our crying at school, and it w r as 
not considered etiquette to notice any one whose 
head was hidden in that way. But I ventured to 
approach this time, and offer consolation in school- 
girl fashion, — by putting my arm round the 



96 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

shoulders, shaken with sobs, laying my cheek as 
close to the cheek of the afflicted one as her 
pocket-handkerchief would allow, and murmuring 
words of comfort. To be sure she was a stranger 
to me, but I felt quite hurt when she suddenly 
turned her back upon me, jerked me away with 
her sharp elbow, and muttered, " Do let me alone, 
you !" I looked at her "particular friend," who 
sat near, with a dejected countenance. " She 's 
crying because she 's afraid that mob 's going to 
come," said the friend, with a solemn shake of the 
little head. " Is it possible," I thought to nryself, 
"that she is crying for that]" I am afraid / 
should have wept bitterly if I had been made to 
believe that the mob was not "going to come." 

Here a strange voice, calling us to order, made 
us all start, and the sobbing to cease suddenly. 
The Vesper hour had arrived, and poor Sister 
Mary Austin, feeling herself entirely incapable of 
reducing us to silence, after she had allowed us to 
remain so long in such a state of misrule, was 
obliged to send for Sister Mary Benedict to enforce 
her authority ; the beautiful, strong-minded Sis- 



THE LAST VESPER SERVICE. 



ter, whose very look compelled obedience, even 
before her voice comnicanded it. 

We hastened to settle ourselves in our seats, 
under her cold, severe eye, and when order was 
entirely restored and silence reigned, a monitor 
was chosen to watch over the school-room, and, 
though they knew it not, the Nuns departed to 
join with their companions in the last Vesper ser- 
vice they should ever hold in that house. The 
remembrance of that hour, even now, fills me with 
solemnity. No one thought of rebelling against 
long-accustomed authority, now that Sister Mary 
Benedict had made us feel that our period of 
license was over, and the girls subsided quickly 
into a stillness so deep that I thought I could 
hear the beating of their hearts, as well as the 
hurried breathing, which could not be controlled 
at once after so long a period of strong excitement. 
Yet when the solemn Vesper-music stole upon the 
silence, rising and falling in minor cadences, the 
reaction came, the excitement gradually abated, 
and I am sure those of the girls who could feel 
the meaning of that plaintive singing must have 



98 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

shared the vague yet real apprehension and anxi- 
ety that gave such wondrous expression to the 
voices of those poor Sisters. 

At any rate, we all went up to bed in serious 
mood, just as the twilight was fading, — for I 
don't think I have mentioned the early hour of 
retirement at the Convent, half past seven for 
Seniors and Juniors alike, — and at the time of 
year of which I write there was just light enough 
at that hour for us to undress without the lantern, 
which, in winter, swung from the ceiling of the 
room, and just made darkness visible. 

My cot was next but one to an end window, 
and the young girl w 7 ho occupied the bed between 
me and that window had not made her appearance 
at school since the close of vacation, so that for 
the time I enjoyed the privilege of a double- 
bedded room, and by just turning my head to the 
right, a wide sky view r through the uncurtained 
panes that belonged to the corner of my privileged 

neighbor. The oldest W sister slept next the 

end window opposite, but I did not feel enough 
acquainted with her to hazard any whimpered re- 



TO BED, DRESSED. 99 

mark across the " middle passage," though I was 
very anxious to know what her opinion really was 
as to the probable events of the night. I suspect 
she thought very little about the matter, for she 
undressed quickly with many loud and long yawns, 
and was in bed and asleep before I had managed 
to slip off my frock and put on my nightgown 
over the rest of my clothing, for I was resolved to 
keep my agreement with Mary, and to go to bed 
dressed, if Sister Mary Austin's argus eyes would 
let me, — she usually kept -so close a watch on 
our toilet proceedings. That night, however, she 
went through her duties mechanically, and took 
very little notice of us, so that I had the happi- 
ness of carrying out my plan, and of lying in my 
petticoats, in a delightful perspiration, with the 
bedclothes closely drawn up under my chin, so as 
to hide any peculiarity in my appearance, should 
the Sister glance at me in her nightly promenade 
down the "middle aisle " of the dormitory. Mary's 
bed was near the door, a long way from mine, and 
though I strained my eyes in the fading twilight, 
trying to watch her, I could not see whether or 



100 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

no she had kept her part of our agreement not to 
undress that night. 

And now Sister Mary Austin had made her 
final passage through the dormitory, murmuring 
her prayers with abstracted look, had paused at 
the door to cross herself, and utter her final 
" Benedicite," or whatever pious Latin phrase 
serves a Religieuse for a formal "good night," 
and had shut us in to repose. As for me, I w r as 
so wide awake that I could not even close my 
eyes, and I lay, I knew not how long, but it 
seemed to me for half the night, listening to the 
deep breathing, mingled with an occasional snore, 
of my room-mates, who were quite weary enough 
to fall asleep at once. A few uneasy ones stirred 
on their pillows and muttered some unintelligible 
words, perhaps still disturbed by the excitement 
of the day, for the most dyspeptic would not have 
been made restless by our supper of dry bread 
and milk. 

In the midst of these heavy sleepers I felt my- 
self alone in the room, and, becoming more and 
more uncomfortable and hot under my petticoats, 



MOUNT BENEDICT AT NIGHT. 101 

I determined to stay in bed no longer. So I rose 
softly and ventured to steal to the end window, in 
the alley of my absent neighbor, from which a 
glimpse of the avenue and the Bishop's house 
was visible. I even had the courage to raise the 
window, very gently, and the summer night-wind 
suddenly blowing in my face made me feel as if 
I had actually stepped out doors. I folded my 
arms on the window-sill, and leaned out as far as I 
could, that I might give myself up to the illusion 
of fancying myself out in the night alone, when 
all the world but me was asleep. 

The Convent, on the summit of Mount Bene- 
dict, stood so high that I seemed to be lifted up 
among the stars that sparkled and twinkled like 
heavy golden drops around and above me. The 
breeze, steadily blowing, stirred me to vague im- 
aginings of distant beauty and sweetness, for it 
was laden with perfume from the wooded hills a 
long way off. For the Convent stood between the 
sea and an amphitheatre of hills, whose slopes 
were covered with villages, villas, and gardens, 
and the charming suburbs of a great city, while 



102 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

their summits were still crowned with rich groves 
of trees. But just outside the Convent grounds, 
and around the base of Mount Benedict, lay, like 
an encircling ring, that barren, clayey district, 
given up to brickmaking, from out of which the 
city of Boston, was springing. This region of clay- 
pit appeared so ugly, dull, and desolate, when we 
looked down upon it from our bowery playground 
on Mount Benedict during recreation hours, that 
I never willingly suffered my eyes to dwell upon 
it, overlooking it quickly to let them rest instead 
upon the green and purple distance. But on this 
night such a change appeared as made a fairy 
land of that distant plain. All the brick-kilns 
had been set burning, and as night concealed the 
ugly brickyards and clay-fields in which they were 
erected, nothing was visible but the magic circle 
of fire that seemed to be drawn around the Con- 
vent. 

No sound was to be heard but the crackling 
of the kiln-fires, the far-away bark of a dog, the 
monotonous droning of the late grasshoppers, and 
the vague hum and stir of insects and leaves on a 



THE FIRST YELL OF THE M OB. 103 

summer night. These, then, were the " Voices of 
the Night," whose whispers delighted my startled 
imagination. 

The breeze was so cooling, so refreshing, the 
distant sounds so soothing, that insensibly I grew 
sleepy and my head drooped lower and lower, till 
my cheek touched my folded arms. I made an 
effort to waken myself and to hold up my heavy 
head, and opened my eyes to their full width, for 
which I was rewarded by seeing a bright falling 
star curve down to the horizon. 

For one instant I watched it ; the next was the 
first moment in my life when I realized the mean- 
ing of the word appalled. I heard — what shall 
I call it 1 — a shout, a cry, a howl, a yell 1 It was 
the sound of a mob, a voice of the night, indeed, 
that made it hideous. Child as I was, I knew at 
once the meaning of the sound, — it came from 
more than a mile away, for, as we heard after- 
wards, the mob gave one roar as it crossed Charles- 
town bridge, and then observed profound silence 
till it reached the Convent grounds. My heart 
beat thick and fast, my hands clasped themselves 



104 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

together, and there was a rushing and ringing in 
my ears, as if the mob was surging around me 
already. But in a few moments I recovered my- 
self, and drew back into the dormitory from the 
window. The girls still slept profoundly, and not 
a sound was audible about the building ; that dis- 
tant cry, so significant to me, was not loud enough 
to awaken any sleeper. 

Once more I ventured to put my head out of 
the window, and waited for what would come 
next, in a trance of suspense, hardly daring to 
breathe. Again the watch-dog barked, at the far- 
away farm-house, the grasshoppers droned, the 
fires in the brickyards crackled, but how changed 
was the night to my excited imagination ! Save 
for those faint noises, solemn silence again reigned, 
but I knew it was to be broken, horribly broken, 
and I shivered all over in the anticipation. I 
looked up at the stars, vaguely fancying that the 
worlds above would in some way be changing, in 
sympathy with the world below, and half sur- 
prised to see them still in their places, throb- 
bing with the same measured beat. 



WAS IT A DREAM? 105 

Though I leaned, waiting, against the window, 
still as a little statue, my brain was whirling with 
thought. Yes, the mob was really coming, — Mary 
and I were right. I, for one, was dressed, and 
could in a moment slip on my frock, if necessary, 
but what would happen 1 At least I should have 
to go home, — the mob would do something to 
make that necessary. Very likely there would be 
an end to the school, at least for a time. Delight- 
ful thought ! Courage came back to me at the 
bare idea. • Welcome the mob if it could bring 
that about ! " Destruction of the Convent," — 
yes, the girls had repeated that phrase many 
times, — when 1 Yesterday 1 To-day 1 Why, it 
seemed an age since I heard them talking about 
it, and how still it was, how silent ! The dog had 
done barking, — he must have gone to sleep, and 
no wonder, for I had been waiting an eternity. 
Did I really, after all, hear that cry 1 Perhaps I 
dreamed it ; that would be natural enough when 
my head was full of mobs, and the girls had talked 
of nothing else — to-day % yesterday 1 which was 
it 3 Ah ! — A horrible yell suddenly rent the air 
5* 



106 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

within a few yards of the window at which I was 
standing, and a host of dark figures rushed into 
view, turning the corner of the Bishop's house, 
rolling over the ground, as it seemed in the dim 
starlight, like a black cloud. I flew across the 

room to Elizabeth W 's bed, shaking her and 

crying out, "Wake up, wake up, the mob has 
really come ! " She started up screaming ; in- 
deed, though the rioters had gone round to the 
front of the house, and were no longer visible 
from our windows, which looked another way, the 
hoarse outcry they made would have roused the 
Seven Sleepers. 

All the girls in the dormitoiw suddenly wakened, 
screamed in concert with Elizabeth, and many of 
them sprang out of bed in affright. I could just 
discern their figures moving helplessly about in 
the darkness. Suddenly the door opened, and 
Sister Mary Austin appeared ; by the light of a 
lantern swinging from the hall ceiling opposite 
the door I could see that she was shaking all 
over, but she tried to control the trembling of 
her voice, as she called out, " Girls, dont be fright- 



0, THE MOD! THE MOB! 107 

ened ! There can't be any danger, but you bad 
better dress yourselves." The younger girls ran 
up to her, and clung to her screaming, " 0, the 
mob, the mob, — we shall all be killed ! 0, what 
shall we do, what w ill become of us 1 " The older 
ones wept and wailed and wrung their hands, and 
those w 7 ho were intimate friends threw their arms 
about each other, and vowed to keep together 
whatever happened. Sister Mary Austin, herself 
w r eeping hysterically, kept imploring the girls to 
dress themselves, whenever she could command 
her voice, and the poor things essayed to do so, 
but they were so agitated, so bewildered, that 
few of them were able to put on all their clothes, 
or to fasten properly such as they did contrive 
to get into. It was not for want of time, for we 
had hours yet to wait before the will of the mob 
declared itself; perhaps the want of light had 
something to do with the strange helplessness of 
the scholars, — of course no lamp was allowed in 
any room w r ith windows, lest the mob should be 
attracted by it, — and the dim glimmer of the 
hall lantern only puzzled the poor children whose 



108 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

eyes were blinded with tears and terror. As for 
me, I managed to take off my nightgown and put 
on my frock, and then I sat quietly down on my 
trunk, feeling a sort of contempt for the insane 
terror of all the people about me, kept at its cli- 
max by the furious outcries of the rioters. In- 
deed, I should give myself credit for feeling the 
high courage of a heroine, if 1 had not to confess 
that my common-sense whispered to me, from the 
first, that the girls had nothing to fear from the 
hands of the mob, who probably considered them 
as objects of pity. It was the Superior whom 
they specially hated, and her Nuns and her Con- 
vent, and on these was to be spent the wrath and 
rage born of religious bigotry. This thought made 
me calm and fearless, though it was rather an in- 
stinct than a thought, for of course it did not pre- 
sent itself definitely to my mind. So I sat on my 
trunk and listened to the cries of the rioters, and 
the responsive wailing of the girls, oddly mingled 
with fretful complainings, like children as they 
were, — "0 dear, I can't find the bottom of my 
petticoat ! " " mercy, this shoe is n't mine, I 



THE FIRST SHOT FIRED. 109 

can't make it go on at heel ! " "0, my frock, the 
sleeve is wrong side out, or something; it won't 
go on ! " " Where is my other stocking 1 It 's 
away under your bed, Jane, I never can get it ! " 
" What shall I ever do 1 My flannel petticoat has 
got wet all over in my washbowl ! " 

And now we heard two gunshots fired in rapid 
succession outside the Convent, and simultaneously 
loud screams issued from every dormitory where 
the scholars were collected. Some one rushed 
into our dormitory, crying out, " They have shot 
the Superior; she went to the top of the high 
steps to speak with them, and they would n't lis- 
ten, and they shot her." Poor Sister Mary Aus- 
tin sank back on her chair in strong hysterics at 
this word, and a scene of great confusion ensued ; 
some of the older girls tried to help the poor 
Sister as well as their trembling limbs would let 
them ; they fanned her and dashed water in her 
face. Another messenger entered and shook Sis- 
ter Mary Austin by the shoulder. " Do you hear 
me % " she said, — it was some tall girl from a 
neighboring dormitory, whom I did not know by 



110 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

name, — " the Superior is not hurt ; they shot at 
her, but they did not hit her. Sister ! do stop 
crying so terribly, do hear me, — the Superior is 
just as safe as you are, and she'll be here very 
soon, and you can see her for yourself." 

Poor Sister Mary Austin sat up, gasping for 
breath, and although I had not recovered from 
the terrible impression made upon me by those 
gunshots, I was struck with the ridiculous appear- 
ance of the poor lady, with her veil drenched, 
her linen headpiece half off, disclosing her round 
shaven poll. Ludicrous ideas always seize most 
strongly upon me in the midst of horror. 

Now we heard a quick, firm step coming through 
the hall, attended by a patter of little feet ; and 
in a moment the Superior herself was among us, 
surrounded by a crowd of Juniors, trembling little 
things who had forgotten their awe of her and 
clung to her desperately. Many of us ran to 
meet her at the door, and I among the number, 
eager to know what had really befallen her. Sis- 
ter Mary Austin clutched her dress with nervous 
eagerness, and the Superior looked down upon her 



THE SUPER TOR DEMANDED. Ill 

with her usual grand air, though she was evidently 
excited to the highest pitch. It was difficult to 
catch what she said through the chorus of fear 
and lamentation which the children about her 
kept up, but her eyes flashed, as I could see by 
the rays from the lantern which happened to fall 
upon her as she stood near the door. It seems 
that the mob had never ceased to call upon her 
name, from the moment they reached the front of 
the building, ordering her, with oaths and savage 
outcries, to come forth, and bring with her the 
miserable victims whom she kept imprisoned in 
her dungeons. The Superior would have gone 
out and confronted the rioters immediately had 
she not been restrained by the Nuns, who clung 
to her with prayers and tears, and entreated her 
not to venture into unnecessary danger. For a 
long time they held her back, but she had the 
courage of a man, and the taunts and jeers of the 
mob stung her to recklessness, and she at last 
tore herself from the arms of the Sisters, and 
rushed out upon the landing of the high flight of 
steps that gave access to the main door of the 



112 TIIE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

building. Though she had the courage of a man, 
she was as ignorant of the world as a child, and 
utterly wanting in tact. She had been used to 
-command all her life, and she looked upon the 
mob with immeasurable contempt, — as canaille, 
as creatures that could be cowed by threats. I 
can imagine how she appeared as she stood on the 
top of the steps high above them, her tall erect 
figure dimly outlined in the starlight, her black 
robes fluttering back and blending with the dark 
background which the open door made behind 
her. The mob saluted her with a storm of objur- 
gation, which she bore without flinching, inter- 
rupting them at last in her clear, loud voice, with 
some word that intimated her desire to speak. 
Curiosity as to what she would say caused a sud- 
den silence to fall on the rioters, and it is possi- 
ble that if she had known how to address them 
she might have prevailed with them and per- 
suaded them to disperse. For they seemed at 
first by no means determined to commit violence, 
in spite of their savage threats to that effect. It 
can hardly be believed possible, but such was the 



THE SUPERIOR ADDRESSES THE MOB. 113 

fact, that the Superior addressed that listening 
crowd in language as violent as their own, deliv- 
ered with the utmost arrogance and imperiousness 
of manner. I never knew what her words really 
were, with the exception of one threat, which I 
myself heard her boast of having made; and if 
she uttered it to the mob with half the angry 
vehemence that she used in repeating it after- 
wards, I do not wonder that she excited violent 
indignation. "Disperse immediately," she said to 
the rioters ; "for if you don't, the Bishop has 
twenty thousand Irishmen at his command in 
Boston, and they will whip you all into the sea ! " 
Think of the effect of such a speech as that on a 
body of American truckmen and mechanics ! It 
was immediately after she had launched this 
threat at the rioters that, breaking their silence 
with fierce yells, they fired at the Superior twice, 
and the affrighted Nuns, hovering in the shadow 
of the door behind her, pulled her back by force, 
and barred the door in the nice of the mob. 

Even then it did not proceed to extremities, — 
we had yet a long time to wait ! All the dor- 

H 



114 TEE BURNING OF TEE CONVENT. 

mitories were at the back of the building, looking 
upon the garden, which, as is usual in convents, 
was entirely shut in by high fences, and the same 
strong picket-fences, built out on each side of the 
main facade, cut off all communication between 
the grounds at the front and those at the back of 
the Convent. It was from the end window of one 
of the Senior dormitories, at right angles with the 
front avenue, that I caught the first glimpse of the 
rioters passing through it. 

Profound silence and darkness by the Superior's 
orders reigned in the lower story of the building, 
and in the front up-stairs rooms; but the girls 
moved freely through the back dormitories, as 
these were farther removed from the sight and 
sound of the mob, unless, indeed, it should break 
down the separating fences, or force a passage into 
the house. Tired of sitting on my trunk, waiting 
for I knew not what, 1 too wandered about in the 
dormitories, always seeing a succession of painful 
sights. In one the poor Novice, her pale face laid 
back into her white veil, was stretched on a bed 
in a dead faint, waited upon by some of the girls, 



THE GIRLS IN DISTRESS. 115 

who, however, hardly knew what to do for her. 

In another Rosamond M lay on the floor in 

a fit, her weak nerves being quite unable to bear 
the terror of the night. Several of the children 
had hysterics more or less severe, and the sound 
of their laughing, crying, and groaning was dis- 
mal indeed. I don't remember encountering indi- 
vidual girls in my wanderings, — probably in my 
state of exaltation I met them, and looked at 
them without recognizing them. One only I re- 
member. The front rooms opposite the dormito- 
ries were closed by the Superior's order, to shut 
out as much as possible the noise made by the 
rioters, but as I happened to notice one of these 
doors ajar, while I was lingering in the hall, I 
ventured to push it open. There, alone, sitting 
on the sill of an open window, her face and figure 
visible in the light thrown up from some lanterns 

carried by the men below, sat Susanne P ! 

She looked up calmly as I entered, but said noth- 
ing ; and made way for me to come and sit beside 
her. Seeing her so composed, I went up to her, 
whispering, " Susanne, how dare you ! " for it 



11G THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

was reported among the girls that stones had been 
thrown at the few among them who had been 
reckless enough to appear near a front window. 
" I have been here a long time," she said qnietly, 
in her pretty broken English; "no one has noticed 
me, — come and look ! " 

I ventured to put my head over the window-sill, 
and I saw below me a crowd of men and a few 
lanterns, moving together confusedly, and I heard 
a jargon of voices, though I could not distinguish 
much that was said. Some were in eager consul- 
tation, apparently ; there was much talk inter- 
rupted with oaths ; savage tones struck my ear ; 
foul language was uttered that I could not under- 
stand, and the Superior's name often mentioned, 
never without an oath and some insulting appella- 
tion. One sentence only I clearly remember ; for 
it was spoken right beneath us, and so distinctly 
uttered that I think it was said to frighten us, 
by some one who saw us at the window. " Sad 
enough for the poor girls," said the voice, "but 
there is no help for it, — we must blow up this 
cursed building with gunpowder." 



THE CONVENT TO BE BLOWN UP. 117 

I drew my head in quickly ; perhaps I should 
have been frightened had I not looked at Su- 
sanne, and taken courage from her contemptuous 
smile. Some one else must have overheard this 
speech, or one like it, from another window, for on 
leaving Susanne alone at her post of observation, 
I found the poor girls suffering from a new access 
of terror, caused by a report that we were all 
going to be blown up. A few years after I was 

told that Susanne P was the sister of Louis 

Perrault, who, with his father, were prominent 
leaders of the Canadian rebellion, and who took 
rank as heroes in the minds of Canadian sympa- 
thizers. Certainly Susanne, the daughter of the 
house, was a born heroine ! 

The mob had now been before the Convent for 
an hour or two; it seemed a long, long time, 
though we had no way of measuring it. With the 
exception of certain gusts of terror which swept 
through the children when some new, dreadful 
threat of the rioters, uttered more distinctly than 
usual, was reported among them, the excitement 
that completely overwhelmed them at first had 



118 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT 

subsided, and the poor weary girls had fallen into 
a state of passive endurance. Many of them 
seemed stupefied as they sat about on their trunks 
or on the floor, leaning against the foot of a bed- 
stead, for there was not a single chair in the dor- 
mitories. Some were dozing as they lay stretched 
across the foot of a bed ; some had taken pillows, 
and had thrown themselves down to rest in the 
alleys between the cots. There seemed to be a 
general feeling that it was not the thing at such 
a time to lie down properly on the bed in the 
usual manner. And all were in different stages 
of dress and undress, hardly one fitly attired, for 
the Nuns were entirely absorbed in their own ter- 
rors, and not one paid the least attention to the 
condition of the pupils, or even at any time sug- 
gested to them to try and save such valuable 
articles as could be easily carried from the wreck 
and ruin that was to be apprehended. 

Suddenly the calm into which we had fallen 
was broken by a joyful cry : "They are going off! 
The mob is really going off ! They have left the 
Convent, and they are all moving in a body towards 



THE MOB SEEMS TO WITHDRAW. 119 

Charlestown ! " Even the most timid of the girls 
hastened to look out of the front windows, anxious 
to see for themselves if this wonderful, delightful 
news could be true. All was pleasant flutter, and 
a joyful excitement succeeded to the late melan- 
choly state of suspense, for the mob was indeed 
moving off, and had already left the front of the 
building. We could see the black cloud of figures 
rolling along the terrace-walks leading to the main 
avenue that wound its w r ay down the hill to 
Charlestown. I rushed to the room where Susanne 

P ■ still sat motionless on the window-sill, and 

followed the cloud w T ith my eyes as it slowly re- 
treated. 

I heard the laughing and chattering of the 
girls, so suddenly relieved from apprehension, in 
the neighboring rooms, but I could not say one 
word. I confess to a horrible feeling of disappoint- 
ment. I had so hoped that the mob might do 
something that would lead to my going home and 
to the breaking up of the school, though very 
vague in my mind was the idea of what that 
something might, could, or should be. Susanne 



120 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

was equally silent, and paid no attention to me 
whatever. At last I conld contain myself no 
longer, and I said, mournfully, " So they are 
really going away, after all ! " And I heaved a 
deep sigh. "You are mistaken," said Susanne, 
quietly. " Tu te trompes," she muttered, forget- 
ting her English in the earnestness with which 
she watched the proceedings of the mob. " Look 
there ! " she exclaimed aloud, and I looked with 
all my eyes. 

At the end of the terrace-walks, and before de- 
scending the hill, the black cloud wavered and 
stopped ; then it rolled back and forth in various 
uncertain directions, then it settled, and, after 
what seemed a long time, the light from a couple 
of bonfires began to illumine the scene. These 
were fed with boards and pickets from the fences 
at the bottom of the walks ; we could see men 
pulling and tearing them away, and throwing 
them upon the bonfires, which then emitted great 
showers of sparks. I thought the light was al- 
ready growing very brilliant, when suddenly the 
flames from some burning tar-barrels blazed out 



A FIRE-ENGINE APPEARS. 121 

fiercely, streaming high up in the air, putting out 
the light of the fainter bonfires and making the 
place as light as day. The black cloud resolved 
itself entirely into the figures of men, which 
moved irregularly about the fires. 

Soon we heard a faint tinkling sound, and we 
saw a speck of dim light like that of a lantern 
hung high on a frail support, come moving and 
creeping up the hill from the main road to 
Charlestown. " Susanne, what is it]" I whis- 
pered. " It is the fire-engine from Charlestown," 
she answered. " They have seen the blaze ; they 
thought it must be from the Convent, that it was 
on fire, and they have come to put it out." 
" Then they will certainly help us, those firemen," 
I whispered again, for I was too much excited to 
speak loud. " They certainly will drive the mob 
off," I went on, hardly knowing whether I wished 
they would or not ! There was a pause when the 
engine reached the top of the hill, apparently a 
parley between the rioters and the firemen. " Now 
look again," said Susanne, in her quiet tone ; the 
lantern, swinging high above the engine, turned 
6 



122 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

round slowly, drew off from the rioters, began to 
descend the hill. Down, down, down it went, 
swaying from side to side, while the engine-bell 
tinkled, tinkled ever more faintly, and slowly the 
machine disappeared from our straining eyes, and 
was lost from sight ere it turned sharp round into 
the road. 

The little opposition made to their doings by 
the firemen seemed to give the rioters sudden 
courage, which, as we afterwards heard, was stim- 
ulated also by liquor, — a barrel of spirit, proba- 
bly New England rum, having been broached in 
the neighborhood of the bonfires, — and an entire 
change took place in their conduct, hitherto so 
vacillating. They leaped and danced about the 
blazing tar-barrels, yelling, singing, throwing their 
arms about in wild gestures, so that their figures, 
seen against the brilliant light of the flames, 
looked like a confusion of black whirling wheels, 
whose spokes were legs and arms. Suddenly some 
of the number ran to the bonfires, snatched from 
them burning firebrands, which they whirled aloft, 
and, loudly calling on the rest to follow, they 



BACK COME THE RIOTERS. 123 

placed themselves at the head of the dreadful 
returning tide of rioters, which now surged back 
towards the Convent with a hoarse roar like a 
great wave rising to ingulf it. 

Now, indeed, there was no mistaking the pur- 
pose of the rioters, their time for action had 
come ; and the poor children, still watching at 
the front windows, and just now so happy in the 
relief of their fears, saw it and knew it as well 
as I did. A great cry arose, and then an ago- 
nized and confused screaming from the poor crea- 
tures. I remember no more of Susanne than if 
she had disappeared by magic from before my 
eyes ; I rushed back to the hall, where I encoun- 
tered a crowd of distracted children running in 
every direction. Suddenly I heard voices calling 

out, " Maria F , where is Maria F 1 The 

Superior wants Maria F " ; and I caught a 

glimpse of some of the Nuns urging that lovely 
young creature into a front room. I did not fol- 
low her, but I know that she w T as there seized 
upon by the Superior, and put forward as a for- 
lorn hope by that poor lady and her terrified 



124 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

group of Nuns, at their wits' ends for means to 
meet the coming destruction. I heard a window 
in that room thrown open ; and, running back to 
the post of observation I had just quitted, I was 
in time to catch a glimpse of Maria's head and body- 
thrust out of the window so far that it was evident 
she was grasped from behind by some unseen hand, 
and to hear her youthful treble pipe forth, " Go 
away, go away ! my father's a judge, and he will 
put you all in prison ! " This address to the mob, 
of course, produced not the least effect, probably it 
was not even heard, but poor Maria had done her 
best ; she was hastily jerked back by the hands 
that held her, and the window shut down. The 
Superior really thought that her idea of threaten- 
ing the mob with the terrors of the law, by the 
mouth of a judge's daughter, was an inspiration 
of genius sure to be successful, though such be- 
niffhted ignorance of life and human nature is 
almost impossible to believe ! 

This solemn farce being concluded, and Maria's 
head disappearing, the ever-increasing yells of the 
mob, now swarming once more under the walls of 



/ RECEIVE A CHARGE. 125 

the building, drove me also from the window, and 
I ran back again into the hall, where I found the 
Superior trying to rally the children, who were 
wildly running about here and there. Her strong- 
will prevailed over many, who came clustering 
about her. With her quick eye she singled out 
those of the older girls who seemed to have the 
most presence of mind. To each of them she 
intrusted one of the smallest of the children at 
her knees, with a few solemn words of charge, 
clasping their hands together with her own firm 
palm. Suddenly her eye fell on me, and she 
almost smiled. " Why, you are as brave as a 
little lion ! " she said, and, drawing me up to her 
with one hand, she brought forward with the other 
a small, sickly, thin child, whose pink frock was 
dropping off her skeleton shoulders. The poor 
little creature was perfectly dazed with terror 
and bewilderment, and the Superior looked at 
her keenly, as she put her helpless hand into 
mine. " Her mind is gone to-night entirely," said 
she, "and I give her in charge to you, because 
you are not frightened. Promise me solemnly 



126 THE BURNING OF TEE CONVENT. 

that you won't let go her hand, till you find your- 
self in some safe place." Her voice and manner 
made a great impression on me ; I looked up into 
her face and gave the required promise, at the 
same time squeezing the poor little girl's hand 
so hard that she gave a little moan. 

I shall never cease to wonder at the personal 
coolness and courage of the Superior in this fear- 
ful crisis ; as remarkable as the childish ignorance 
and want of tact she showed in the management 
of others. For the mob, brutalized with drink, 
rending the air with hoarse outcries, were already 
endeavoring to force the heavy outer doors with 
violent blows, which resounded through the build- 
ing, and shook it to its foundation. And the Su- 
perior knew that if these rioters should come upon 
her, inflamed with liquor, rage, and hate as they 
were tl^en, they would kill her. Yet her eye 
never quailed, and neither hand nor voice trem- 
bled. 

I don't know how the time went. I suppose it 
was only for a minute or two that we stood par- 
alyzed in the hall, listening to the violent attack 



THE MOB ENTERS. 127 

being made on the doors below. Suddenly a black 
body of Nuns came flying through the whole length 
of the passage from the Superior's room, and threw 
themselves upon her, pushing her forward, and 
crying, "0 Madame, ma Mere, they have en- 
tered your room, they are climbing in through 
the window, it is full of men already, — they will 
be here in a moment, — 0, fly, fly ! — 0, ivhere 
shall we go 1 " And they wept and groaned fran- 
tically. " Silence ! " cried the Superior, in her 
commanding voice. " Mcs Soeurs, follow me ! and 
you girls," she added, hastily turning to us, " if 
any of you are willing to run the risk of coming 
with me, do you keep close beside me." She then 
ran forward through the hall, followed by the 
Nuns, and by many of the girls, the big ones 
dragging their little charges after them, till she 
reached a certain stairway. Here she paused to 
look back at her following, and just then a crash 
was heard below, so sudden and deafening, that 
the violent screams of women and children above 
and the triumphant hurrahs of the mob beneath 
were hardly audible above it. No wonder the 



128 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

sound was overwhelming ! Well-directed volleys 
of stones were fired simultaneously and in quick 
repetition at all the lower front windows of the 
building, and the crashing of glass was as loud as 
a volley of musketry. Some of the girls who were 
following the Superior, not knowing what they 
did in their terror, ran past her with a wild 
shriek, farther down the long hall, and vanished 
from sight, nor did she attempt to stop them. 
She herself flew down the stairs, and I saw that 
she held a large key in her hand. Just at the 
bottom of these stairs a massive door opened from 
the lower back hall into a small paved court, sunk 
between two long projecting wings of the main 
building ; and from this court there was access to 
the large back garden of the Convent. All the 
Nuns, and about twenty of the girls, prepared to 
follow the Superior, but when they saw her put 
the large key which she carried into the lock of 
the court door, with a natural hesitation they lin- 
gered at the top of the stairs, not knowing who 
or what might rush in upon them as soon as that 
door should be opened. As for me, I was wrought 



A SORTIE EFFECTED. 129 

up to a pitch of heroism: indeed, I don't think 
that I screamed once during that night, even in 
sympathy with the screaming multitude around 
me, and, seeing the Superior all alone at the foot 
of the stairs essaying to unlock the door, I broke 
through the trembling crowd on the landing above 
and hurried down to join her, as fast as I could 
drag my passive charge after me. " Brave girl ! " 
she said, as I pressed close to her side ; nor can 
I describe the feelings which agitated me during 
the moment of suspense when she was turning 
the heavy lock of the door. The stillness with- 
out made that moment still more exciting ; I im- 
agined a band of crouching rioters in ambush just 
outside the door, and prepared myself for the 
sudden spring of a drunken mob, ready to beat 
down the Superior and the Nuns with clubs, or 
shoot at them with guns. I think the Superior 
shared my apprehensions, for she drew a long 
shuddering breath as she at length mastered the 
lock, and flung the door wide open. Ah ! shall 
I ever forget the ghostly stillness of that court- 
yard 1 It struck me with awe, as something 



130 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

supernatural, in contrast with the horrible din 
of destruction at the front of the building. Shall 
I ever forget how calmly the moonlight slept upon 
its fair pavement, save when the small shadows 
of leaves, stirred by the night-wind, moved lightly 
over it, like fairy feet dancing'? The court, was 
planted with white-rose bushes, yet in bearing, 
and shall I ever forget how the full-blown roses 
w r ere set among the dusky branches, like so many 
ivory cups, nor how they seemed to hold a sweeter 
perfume than ever rose-cups held before 1 For, as 
I stood at the Superior's side, close enough to feel 
the beating of her heart while she was struggling 
with the unyielding lock, I had so wrought my- 
self up to expect, and to meet, nameless horrors 
in that courtyard, that the reaction set my im- 
agination free to enjoy and idealize the peaceful 
reality. 

Well for the Superior it was, that her room 
contained many valuable articles, besides a large 
sum of money just paid in by the pupils ; for, if 
the men who first climbed into it through her 
windows had not stopped to steal her possessions, 



REFUGE AT THE TOMB. 131 

she could never have had time to escape from the 
upper hall as she did. 

As soon as the anxious little crowd waiting at 
the top of the stairs saw the Superior disappearing 
in safety through the court door, they all rushed 
tumultuously after her, and we followed her quickly 
to the very bottom of the long garden, where our 
further progress was stopped by a board fence, 
some eight or ten feet high. As it had been built 
strong enough to keep out all curious intruders 
and garden thieves, of course it effectually shut us 
in. The Superior led the way to the very door 
of the solid brick tomb, which was as large as a 
small house, and made us all sit down on the 
grass-border of the broad walk leading past it. 
The iron door of the tomb was ajar, perhaps for 
the purpose of ventilation, and I think the Supe- 
rior meant to take refuge within it, should she be 
followed by the rioters. 

And now profound silence was again enjoined 
upon us by the Superior, who sat enthroned 
among us, — for she always held herself enthroned 
like a queen, however lowly her position, — and 



132 TITE BURNING OF TITE CONVENT. 

the Nuns crouched about her feet. The moon, 
which had but lately risen, and which began to be 
obscured by light clouds, occasionally revealed the 
figures of the girls, who, motionless in various 
hopeless attitudes, had withdrawn themselves as 
much as possible into the shade of the bushes 
that lined the garden paths. Some of them slept 
the sleep of utter exhaustion, in spite of the hor- 
rible noise. For the mob, after forcing their way 
into the Convent, quickly overran it from garret 
to cellar, and the work of its destruction pro- 
ceeded rapidly. With fascinated eyes I watched 
its progress, for I sat where I could see the build- 
ing from top to bottom. The rioters began their 
work by ransacking the cellars and basements, 
probably looking for those dungeons and cells of 
which they had heard, and which they chose to 
believe w^ere used by the Superior as places of 
punishment for such Nuns among the Community 
as fell under her displeasure, and their voices, 
underground, sounded like the hoarse growling of 
a pent-up sea. Up stairs, at the same time, a few 
wandering lights crossed the windows hurriedly, 



THE BUILDING SACKED. 133 

and movei from room to room quickly, carried 
probably by certain practical spirits, who were 
taking advantage of the opportunity to search for 
such valuables as they could pocket easily. Soon 
lights and figures mounted from story to story, 
and a moving panorama of rioters crossed and 
recrossed the windows in procession. The noise 
of breaking and tearing down heavy furniture, the 
smashing and crashing of glass, pictures, and 
china, began to rise above the din and dissonance 
of voices; occasionally some window would sud- 
denly be cleared of figures, and with a rush of 
rioters from within, certain large pieces of furni- 
ture would fill the gap for a moment, and then 
thunder down upon the pavement below, followed 
by the hurrahs and jeering laughter of the crowd. 
Sundry harps and guitars were destroyed in this 
way, and the sharp snap and melancholy after-wail 
of their broken strings, as they fell, put into my 
mind the sudden thought, " 0, what if they should 
throw out one of the Sisters ! " 

And still we sat in profound silence, the girls 
effacing themselves as much as possible among the 



134 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

shrubs, the Nuns huddled together, hiding their 
faces in their veils, about the knees of the Supe- 
rior, who, erect and motionless, kept her eyes 
fixed on the doomed Convent, where she had so 
long held arbitrary rule. Whenever the night- 
wind rustled suddenly in the branches of the 
trees, or sent the fallen leaves scurrying along the 
garden-walks, we fancied for a moment that the 
sounds were made by stealthy footsteps approach- 
ing, and our hearts beat fast. I heard the low 
sigh of relief breathed by such of my companions 
as were awake, when the cause of the sudden 
sounds made themselves evident. For when the 
faint moonlight broke through the clouds, I saw 
some of the children still asleep, with heads nod- 
ding on their breasts. The poor little child put 
under my care by the Superior, and who could 
not have been more than six years old, lay across 
my lap, either asleep or stupefied, and I still held 
her hand grasped mechanically in mine, in fulfil- 
ment of my promise. In answer to a whispered 
inquiry, she told me that her name was Louisa, 
that she came from New Orleans. Occasionally 



POOR CLARIBEL! 135 

during this dreary time of waiting the poor little 
thing would stir her head uneasily in my lap, and 
mutter something, as if in a dream, — waking or 
sleeping, I knew not which, — about " Mother" or 
" Aunt Fan," or a certain wax-doll whose remem- 
brance seemed to haunt her brain. And I had 
plenty of time to think of my poor Claribel, and 
wonder at my folly in not making an attempt to 
save her. I don't know to this day why I did 
not, for there was nothing to hinder me from 
groping my way to the school-room at any time 
during the hours when the mob were keeping us 
in suspense till they should have made up their 
minds what to do with us. 

And now the windows of the Convent began to 
be illuminated, one after the other, and commen- 
cing in the second story, with a more brilliant 
light. No candles, lamps, or torches, such as the 
rioters had been carrying through the rooms, could 
account for it. For they were firing the Convent. 
I could see men going from room to room, heaping 
all sorts of combustible materials, bedding, cur- 
tains, clothing, into the middle of the floors, and 



136 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

even flinging school-books upon the piles, which 
catne down with fluttering leaves, like big birds 
swooping upon them. After an ominous pause I 
saw the fire burst from these combustible heaps, 
at first feebly, and then, as it were, stretching its 
arms higher and higher toward the ceiling, pal- 
pitating and brightening as if breathing in a new 
life. As soon as the rioters had made sure that 
each fire was w T ell lighted, they rushed from the 
room where they had kindled it and went to work 
elsewhere, till in a very short time the windows 
of the Convent began to glow like openings into 
a world of flames. Again there arose the sounds 
of destruction ; of rending, tearing, and falling of 
heavy weights, and the shivering and crackling 
of glass, but made by a power stronger than the 
hands of a dozen mobs. These were the most 
horrible moments of all that horrible night, aud 
the noise was aggravated by the increased roaring 
of the fire, which, together with the brilliancy of 
its light and the pungent smell of smoke, threw 
the poor women and children about me into a 
stronger agony of terror than ever ; the harder to 



THE GARDEN FENCE STOPS US. 137 

bear because it had to be suppressed. For we all 
felt that the time must come soon when we should 
be discovered. The rioters, driven from the build- 
ing by the fire, would assuredly turn to fresh 
mischief; probably nothing had prevented the Su- 
perior from being followed long before but the 
ignorance of the mob as to the nature of con- 
vents. They had no idea the poor Sisters were 
waiting for them at the bottom of the garden, but 
of course supposed they could walk out of it at 
pleasure, and probably had done so. But if the 
search for the Superior should commence, the 
rioters knew she could not have escaped them at 
the front of the Convent, and would follow her 
through the garden, sure that she must have 
taken that way to a place of refuge. 

And the very last of the rioters seemed about 
quitting the building; a few lingered yet in the 
music-room, and they must have been wild with 
intoxication or excitement, for their last act, be- 
fore leaving the room, was actually to hoist up 
and throw from the window a piano, which fell 
with a crash distinctly audible above all other 



138 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

sounds ; then, with one final yell, the ruffians 
disappeared from our sight. Every moment we 
were growing more and more anxious and dis- 
tracted. What should we do] where could we 
go 1 We were shut up in that garden as closely 
as if we were in prison, with no place even of 
temporary refuge from the rioters but the tomb, 
and the poor girls held the tomb in as much hor- 
ror as they did the rioters. Through the whole 
of that eventful night the same fears and appre- 
hensions were shared by all, and though very few 
words were exchanged, each of us knew sympa- 
thetically what the rest were feeling. I suppose 
I was the only child among them all who was 
buoyed up under the terrors of the night by the 
delightful hope of deliverance from the Convent 
and a return to liberty. I am sure the rioters 
would have exulted over me as one victim released 
by them from the Superior's rule, had they known 
my state of mind. 

I was beginning to feel very much cramped by 
long sitting on the grass. I had raised up poor 
Louisa, and was trying to prop her head against 



FRIENDS ON THE OTHER SIDE. 139 

my shoulder while I wrapped my frock about her 
bare neck and arms, when I fancied I heard sus- 
picious sounds, as of people walking softly on the 
other side of the fence. I held my breath to 
listen; there could be no mistake this time; no 
rustling of foliage or fluttering of leaves ever pro- 
duced such sounds. And there were several foot- 
steps audible together, as if a number of men 
were creeping along towards us, one after another. 
We all heard them plainly ; for a moment the ter- 
rified children sat paralyzed with new fear, and 
then, starting up, they rushed toward the Supe- 
rior, huddling together about her, and trying to 
repress their screams, lest they should be over- 
heard. But it was too late ; the footsteps stopped 
suddenly, strong hands began to tear down the 
fence close behind us, and the deep breathing of 
men intent on hard work was plainly audible. It 
was useless for us to think of escaping them, with 
the burning Convent in front of us ; useless to 
think of hiding in the garden, which would soon 
be illuminated in every part by the flames. I 
looked at the Superior anxiously ; brought to bay 



140 THE BURNING OF TEE CONVENT. 

at last, she opened her mouth to call out, " Who 
is there 1 " I hastily interrupted her, not know- 
ing what might happen if her voice was heard, 
and, taking the word from her lips, — with a des- 
perate effort of courage, I confess, — / called out, 
''Who is there] what do you want?" A horrible 
moment of suspense followed, and then a sup- 
pressed voice answered, " We are friends ; don't 
be afraid, we have come to save you." The Su- 
perior knew the voice, and exclaimed, joyfully, 
" It is Mr. Cutter, and his men are with him. 0, 
God be thanked ! " she added, fervently. This 
ejaculation was the only admission of fear or ap- 
prehension that she allowed to escape her lips 
that night in my hearing. " Hush, hush ! " the 
suppressed voice warned us. " You will be over- 
heard. For the Lord's sake, keep quiet ; them 
fellows are looking for the Superior already ; we 
Avere afraid we should be too late." And the tear- 
ing and ripping of boards went on furiously. So 
strongly was the fence built, that it seemed an 
intolerable length of time before an opening could 
be made in it sufficiently large for one person to 



OVER AND THROUGH THE FENCE. 141 

creep through, with aid from the outside, the men 
having only their hands to work with. There was 
such a rash of frightened creatures at the opening, 
each anxious to escape first, and pulling and push- 
ing those who impeded her, that Mr. Cutter had 
to exert all the authority that could be compressed 
into energetic whispers before he could bring about 
some kind of order, and begin to pull us through, 
one at a time. For my part, I felt myself a hero- 
ine ; the first distinct cry of the mob on Charles- 
town bridge, which I heard from my solitary station 
at the dormitory window, had transformed me into 
one, though I confess to sundry momentary back- 
slidings into cowardice ; and in that capacity I 
withdrew proudly from the crowd, with my passive 
little charge, and waited my turn. 

There was a great deal of confusion before the 
terrified company found themselves safe on the 
right side of the fence, and to facilitate their 
escape, a man was assisted by his comrades to 
climb the fence, where he sat astride, pulling up 
the children, one after another, from the Convent 
garden, and dropping them down into strong hands, 



142 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

which waited to receive them on the other side. 
This process took less time than would have been 
required to make another opening in the fence; 
but it was an ignominious mode of exit, and 
showed to great advantage the odd disarray of 
the children. I could see, for instance, that one 
had on only a petticoat outside her nightgown, 
another a nightcap under her bonnet, — for chil- 
dren wore nightcaps in those days. A third dis- 
played one leg bare, with a garterless stocking on 
the other; a fourth had a shawl pinned over a 
flannel skirt ; a stringless shoe and a slipper down 
at heel clambered over the fence together on one 
pair of feet. 

Suddenly I saw my old acquaintance Mary, put- 
ting up her arms imploringly to the man whose 
leg dangled down above her, as if begging him to 
help her up next. I had not before observed that 
she was with us, and I .was anxious to know 
whether she had gone to bed dressed, according to 
the solemn agreement made between us to that 
effect on the afternoon previous. Yes, I could see 
quite plainly, by the light from the burning Con- 



A PROMISE NOT FULFILLED. 143 

vent, that she had kept her word ; up she went in 
the man's strong grasp, in her pink frock, appar- 
ently all right. But she was awkward, and the 
man who was pulling her by both wrists was in a 
hurry ; he gave a sudden jerk, the pink frock 
burst open, and some folds of Mary's nightgown 
fluttered forth ; her cape-bonnet fell back from 
her shoulders, and more nightgown was revealed, 
and as she made an involuntary flying leap over 
the top of the fence, I saw reason to be convinced 
that her nightgown was her only garment, save 
the treacherous pink frock. 

'' There, Mary's goodness has been too much for 
her, after all ! " I thought. She was afraid of 
offending Sister Mary Austin. Well, she '11 never 
have another chance, and I suppose she is glad she 
obeyed rules up to the last minute, though it has 
cost her two petticoats and a pair of pantalets." 

Being determined to fulfil ray promise to keep 
fast hold of Louisa's hand till she should be in a 
place of safety, I refused to be dragged over the 
fence in my turn, but crept quietly through the 
opening, about the very last to make my escape, 



144 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 



though I must confess this act of courage cost 
me a great effort. And yet, though in haste to 
follow my companions, who were fast disappear- 
ing from my sight, as they made their way down 
the hill towards Mr. Cutter's house, I turned and 
looked hack on the Convent through the narrow 
gap in the fence, — like a picture of fire set in a 
black frame, — and for the first and only time 
that night I shed bitter tears. I did so mourn 
over the fate of my poor Claribel, perhaps at that 
very moment melting in the flames. I declare 
I don't like to think of the grief I suffered on 
her account, as I sat, dumb, on the ground that 
night in the garden, with my eyes fixed on what 
I thought her funeral-pyre; nor of the remorse 
which tortured me in thinking how easily I could 
have saved her. 

Poor little Louisa looked into my face when she 
saw me weeping, and I fancied her countenance 
was troubled ; and she made an unsuccessful effort 
to find her pocket, with the purpose, I do believe, 
of offering me her handkerchief when she saw me 
wiping my e3*es on the hem of my frock. 



TEMPORARY SHELTER. 145 

We found ourselves in a potato-field, which 
covered the slope of Mount Benedict, between the 
Convent and Mr. Cutter's house, which fronted the 
high-road at the bottom of the hill. Down through 
the ridges we stumbled, as fast as we could, 
following the Superior and her little anxious party 
into the very house where poor Sister Mary John 
had taken refuge in the delirium of brain-fever. 
A number of people met us at the door, and with- 
out speaking, they led the way at once up stairs, 
ushering us into a couple of large back chambers, 
whose windows faced the Convent. There was a 
high feather-bed in the room which I entered, 
covered with a patchwork quilt, and I immedi- 
ately, with a great effort of strength, lifted up my 
little Louisa, and laid her upon it, that she might 
rest for a few minutes at least. I was not used 
to feather-beds, but I think this must have been a 
very fine one, for I recollect well how the child 
sunk down into the midst of the feathers, which 
rose up all around her and almost hid her from 
my sight, in the bottom of a little nest, while I 
stood on tiptoe to peep down upon her like a 
7 j 



146 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

small mother-bird over a big fledgling. The older 
girls generously gave up the bed to the little ones, 
who clambered up its height, and flung themselves 
down upon it, in a promiscuous confusion of heads 
and legs, — like a handful of jack straws just 
dropped. The one fixed idea in my mind through 
the night was, that it behooved me to keep fast 
hold of my Louisa's hand under all circumstances ; 
and to effect this, as she lay in the bed, I was 
obliged to stand on a footstool beside her, and 
lean my head against the bedpost. Then my eyes 
naturally fixed themselves on the burning Con- 
vent, full in view from the windows, — a magnifi- 
cent display of fireworks, which illuminated the 
room, the house, and the neighborhood for a good 
distance. 

I think I must have fallen into a state of semi- 
somnambulism, a sort of half-awake, half-asleep 
condition, for I remember gradually losing my 
identity, and becoming in an odd way one with 
the flames, from which I felt unable to turn my 
eyes. They appeared to rise and fall with my 
breath, to pulsate with the beating of my heart, 



SISTER MARY JOHN. 147 

and through the varied noises of the conflagration 
a voice seemed to be addressing me in an under- 
tone. Yet I was conscious that Sister Mary John 
had dropped into an arm-chair by my side, and 
was sitting there absolutely motionless, her long 
neck drooping forward, and holding the crucifix 
of her rosary clasped in her hands. Other people 
moved about the room, talking in low murmurs ; 
their figures flitted before my eyes, but I recog- 
nized only this one figure of Sister Mary John, 
still as a statue. I even lost sight of Louisa's 
pale little face, though I knew I was always clasp- 
ing her hand. Suddenly I started up, thoroughly 
roused ; Sister Mary John had flung up her head 
with a wild cry, and before I could draw a long 
breath she had sprung from her chair, and was 
running round and round the room, like an animal 
in a cage, vehemently talking to herself in a toy- 
rent of meaningless words. The people in the 
room shrank away from her for a moment, but it 
was evident that she was perfectly harmless. De- 
lirium had broken out again, and no wonder. Poor 
creature ! she saw no one, and took no notice 



148 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

when she was spoken to, but she continued to run 
pitifully about the room, still clasping her crucifix. 
And nobody paid much attention to her ; a sort 
of apathy had fallen upon us, and we had got 
used to horrors. I now think I must have lost 
myself once more in sleep after that, for I remem- 
ber starting up again, and becoming conscious of 
a strange apparition. The tall figure of Sister 
Mary John stood between me and the window, dis- 
guised in a large bonnet and a school-girl's cloak 
that hardly reached her knees. She was perfectly 
quiet again, but she trembled all over ; she had 
taken it into her head that the vengeance of the 
mob was to fall on her alone, and that she would 
be instantly murdered unless she was disguised as 
a school-girl. She therefore insisted on wrapping 
herself in a child's cloak, the only garment of the 
kind possessed by our scantily clothed party, re- 
fusing to accept instead one that was offered her 
by Mrs. Cutter, and which was quite long enough 
for her. 

Mr. Cutter appeared at the chamber door. 
"Come," said he, hurriedly, in a low voice. "Are 



THE MOB AT OUR DOOR. 149 

you ready 1 ? Follow me; for you can't stay here. 
The mob have tracked the Superior, and they 
declare she is in this house. I have put them off 
as long as I can. I dare n't keep you any longer. 
I and my men will go with you up Winter Hill, 
and try and find some hiding-place for you. 
Come, come, no delay." This was the substance 
of what he said to us ; and w T e w r ere hurried off by 
the women of the family, who were waiting clown 
stairs to aid our escape. In fact, w T e were too 
near the Convent; and there was so much light 
from the flames that no place of concealment 
remained for us in its neighborhood. 

So I lifted my poor little Louisa out of her 
nest, and we followed the Superior and the Sis- 
ters, who had most of them been hidden in an 
adjacent room, and who now appeared wrapped in 
a few shawls and hoods, which did not disguise 
them much. The poor young Novice tottered 
down stairs, supported by two of the Nuns, her 
white veil twisted about her head something in 
the form of a cap. Just as I was crossing the 
threshold of the chamber, I stumbled over a little 



150 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

brown cape, which had been dropped either by 
some child who had gone down before me or by 
some one in the house. I joyfully picked it up, 
with no idea, however, of inquiring for the owner, 
and fastened it round little Louisa's neck. 

We left the Cutter farm-house as quietly as 
possible by the back door, Sister Mary John hur- 
rying on first, with such odd long strides that two 
of the older girls, of whom she had been fond, ran 
forward to join her and to take her between them, 
each holding an arm. But she was so afraid 
murderers were pursuing her, that the girls had 
hard work to soothe and quiet her. We blun- 
dered along through a back yard and a field or 
two, after leaving the house, and finally emerged 
upon the road at some distance from it. The 
men who were with us hurried us continually, but, 
fortunately for the little children, the Superior, 
who was stout and wholly unaccustomed to walk- 
ing, soon got out of breath, and positively declared 
her determination to "take it slowly." The men 
argued in vain. The Superior vowed she would 
walk no faster if the mob were at her heels, and 



ANOTHER FLIGHT NECESSARY. 151 

called imperatively on Sister Mary John to slacken 
her pace. The poor lady, accustomed to obey the 
Superior implicitly, did so now as long as she 
could remember the command, and then hurried 
forward again. The sick young Novice, stimu- 
lated by fear, and perhaps refreshed by the open 
air, felt herself able to walk, but she was only too 
happy to creep on slowly between two strong 
Nuns; and we poor children dragged our weary 
bodies along in straggling procession. No rioters 
appeared anywhere ; we were already a good dis- 
tance from the Convent, and the Superior, whose 
reckless courage never failed her, even at the mo- 
ment when she found herself face to face with the 
mob, began to laugh and joke with Mr. Cutter 
and the Sisters about her, sorely to the distress 
of our escort, who seemed to be for more alarmed 
for her than she was for herself. At that time 
there were scarcely any houses between Mount 
Benedict and Winter Hill; the few scattered dwell- 
ings being occupied by bricklayers and laborers, 
and by no means suitable as places of refuge for 
so large a party, even had it been prudent to stop 



152 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 



so near the precincts of the Convent. Mr. Cutter 
made us walk as fast as was possible • he and the 
men with him were leading the most backward of 
the children by the hand, till we had climbed well 
up Winter Hill, and were nearly a mile, I should 
say, from the Convent. Here our anxious escort 
thought it best to pause and look about for some 
place where it would be safe to ask for shelter. 
We were passing some comfortable-looking houses, 
probably built by people who wished to commend 
the hue view from the top of the hill, and Mr. 
Cutter happened to know some of their occupants. 
So, calling a halt before a substantial dwelling, he 
went forward himself to the door, and began to 
knock and ring, at first softly, and afterwards 
louder and louder. Then he stepped back into 
the front yard, and called up to the chamber 
window, addressing the occupants of the house by 
name. All in vain; dead silence prevailed; the 
house was shut up as if it was deserted, every 
blind closed, and not a sign of life anywhere. 
" Well, if that ain't peculiar ! " I remember Mr. 
Cutter said to himself, as he slowly withdrew 



HOSPITALITY SLEEPS. 153 

down the gravel-walk to the gate. " Let 's try 
t' other man." " T' other man " lived close by, 
and Mr. Cutter made a similar attack on his hos- 
pitality; but no answer was vouchsafed: the same 
silence, the same air of desertion, reigned, not 
only at Mr. "T' other man's," but about the neigh- 
borhood. It was like a " deserted village." Mr. 
Cutter seemed provoked, as well as astonished, 
that he could make no one hoar, and this sur- 
prised me. I thought to mysolf, in my simplicity, 
" Why, if these people have been able to sleep 
sound all night, so near the uproar of the mob 
and the light of the burning Convent, it is n't at 
all likely they could wake up for any noise Mr. 
Cutter is able to make ! " I always prided myself 
on being reasonable. 

Meantime we grew tired of waiting, and as no 
one seemed willing to let us in, we found a tempo- 
rary resting-place for ourselves ; we thankfully sat 
down on the edge of the sidewalk, and were glad 
to rest our heads against the fence behind us. 
Mr. Cutter urged us to rise, telling us we must 
" keep moving," till we found some person willing 
7* 



154 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

to receive us; lie could only hope that person 
would be found living within a reasonable dis- 
tance. And this hope was unexpectedly fulfilled, 
for just as we were preparing to rise from our 
comfortable seats, we heard at a little distance 
the sound of a window opening, and a voice cried, 
" Who 's down there % What 's wanted 1 " W r e 
all turned to look in the direction of the voice, 
and saw a ghostly apparition gleaming white from 
an upper window of a house at a little distance, 
whose hospitality Mr. Cutter had not yet sought. 
It resolved itself into the nightcapped head of an 
old gentleman, which bobbed up and down, like 
Punch's, over the window-sill, when Mr. Cutter 
had made haste to place himself below and begin 
an eager parley with it. Auxious to hear what 
was said, I followed our good guide into the small 
front yard of the house, with my inseparable little 
companion, and we sat down together under a 
convenient lilac-bush. Mr. Cutter was trying to 
persuade the old gentleman to admit us, and 
shelter us till morning, when the mob, as he said, 
would certainly disperse to seek its own safety, 



GOOD JOSEPH ADAMS. 155 

and the fugitives from the Convent be sought for 
by their friends and taken away. 

The old gentleman said he had been up and 
about his house all night, — " Strange," thought 
I, " that he should be so much more wakeful than 
his neighbors ! " — very much alarmed by the 
mob, of whose vicinity he was aware, and very 
anxious about the fate of the women and children 
at the Convent. He declared he was thankful for 
the Superior's escape, but he was very reluctant 
to admit her, as he knew her to be the special 
object of the hatred of the rioters, though he made 
no objection to receiving any number of children 
under his roof. But he was a kind-hearted old 
gentleman, he of the nightcap, and Mr. Cutter at 
last persuaded him to admit us all, assuring him 
that we were not followed by any of the mob, who 
must have been thrown off the scent, and be look- 
ing after the Superior in another direction, if 
indeed they thought it worth while to search for 
her at all. 

So the nightcap disappeared from the window 
to reappear at the front door, where it bobbed a 



156 TEE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

hospitable welcome, even to the Superior, who 
showed herself heartily glad to be once more 
under a roof. We all crowded into a little par- 
lor on the right-hand side of the front door, where 
an old lady in a ruffled cap gleamed on the Nuns 
curiously through a pair of spectacles. She wished 
to be kind to them, and she was very sorry for 
them, — very sorry, too, to have them in her 
house at that time. Yet all honor to Mr. and 
Mrs. Joseph Adams of Winter Hill, for they were 
indeed good Samaritans, — better than the Samar- 
itan, for his kindness cost him only time and 
money, while theirs brought them, as they firmly 
believed, into danger, all the more formidable to 
their fears because they did not know in what 
shape it would come or when to expect it. 

And now, while Mr. Adams made haste to bar 
and lock the front door, and Mrs. Adams to hide 
the only candle she dared keep burning in the 
house behind the fireboard of the parlor, the Su- 
perior, in her usual queenly fashion, seated her- 
self right in the centre of the mahogany horse-hair 
sofa. It was the most elegant piece of furniture 



THE MOB AGAIN. 157 

in the room, and no one dreamed, though seats 
were scarce, of sharing it with her. Sister Mary 
John was in such a state of restless, nervous ex- 
citement that good Mrs. Adams took her up stairs 
at once, and tried to quiet her by making her lie 
down on the bed ; on the other side of the same 
bed the Nuns laid the poor worn-out young Nov- 
ice, — I wish I could remember her name ! — two 
sufferers from the effects of this dreadful night's 
work, equally exhausted, but showing it so differ- 
ently. 

Meantime I had seated myself on the carpet at 
the Superior's feet, with Louisa stretched out on 
the hearth-rug, and her head on my knees. 

The Superior seemed neither tired nor anxious ; 
she appeared as fresh as if she had been soundly 
sleeping all night in her bed, and perfectly indif- 
ferent in regard to the past, the present, or the 
future. She was in reckless spirits, and her lively 
speeches, which she tried to utter in whispers, 
made me laugh. She must have recognized me 
as a kindred spirit in courage, for she did not dis- 
dain to amuse me with her banter. Having: occa- 



158 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

sion to use her handkerchief, she felt in her deep 
pocket and brought forth a very dirty one, and 
also her snuff-box, which she was delighted to find 
there. Her face brightened up. " Old friend, I 
did n't forget you, then ! " she cried, and eagerly 
she took off the cover. Alas, it was empty ! Her 
countenance fell ; I had never seen it wear an 
expression of such distress. But recovering her- 
self, and heaving a comical sigh, she held forth 
tragically, one in each hand, her soiled handker- 
chief and empty snuff-box. " If I only had a 
clean pocket-handkerchief and some snuff," she 
said, " I should be perfectly happy ! " 

Then Mr. Adams entered the room hurriedly, 
and implored the Superior to be silent; he had 
seen from the upper window people approaching 
from the direction of the Convent ; and even as 
he spoke the sound of rude talking and snatches 
of rough singing became audible. With beating 
heart I heard the voices and steps come nearer 
and nearer, pause, as if for consultation, and 
finally stop at Mr. Adams's gate. Heavy feet 
trampled the gravel-walk which led to the front 



THEY CLAMOR FOR US. 159 

door, and the bell rang loud and long, while the 
feet shuffled impatiently on the doorsteps. I sup- 
pose there was not a human being in the house 
who dared to draw a long breath at that moment. 
Mr. Adams showed great presence of mind ; he 
let the impatient hands pull the door-bell several 
times, and paid no attention to the voices which 
shouted for the " man of the house " to appear. I 
watched him as he stood in our midst, with his 
finger on his lip. At last, when the clamor out- 
side could no longer be ignored, he pulled off his 
coat, drew on his head the nightcap in which we 
were first introduced to him, appearing all in white 
clown to his waist, like a man just out of bed, and 
crept softly up stairs. We heard his light foot- 
steps cross the room overhead, and then the lei- 
surely opening of a window and throwing back 
of a blind. I suppose the old gentleman never 
knew before how great a talent he had for acting. 
With a sleepy air of astonishment and a bewil- 
dered manner of speech, just like a man suddenly 
roused from a deep sleep, he asked what was the 
matter, and why such a noise was made about his 



160 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

house. A confusion of voices answered him : a 
great deal of foul language was used that I did 
not understand, but this was the substance of 
their errand : They were searching for the Supe- 
rior ; she had been seen going toward Winter 
Hill ; they suspected she might be hiding about 
the neighborhood somewhere, perhaps in that very 
house ; or, if not, very likely the old man knew 
something about her. If so, she was wanted, and 
he 'd better tell all he knew if he had any notion 
of what was good for himself. Mr. Adams eagerly 
interrupted them by asking questions, like a mnn 
perfectly astonished at what he heard, and full 
of unbounded curiosity to have it explained. The 
Superior walking up "Winter Hill ! Why, what 
could they mean] And dear me ! there was a fire 
down Charlestown way, and a big one, too ! When 
folks shut their blinds before they went to bed, 
they could never see anything, nor hear anything 
either, especially if folks were getting old and 
deaf. So that was the Convent burning ! Good 
gracious! how did it happen'? Well, I want to 
know ! And good Mr. Adams, acting perfect igno- 



A SKILFUL PERFORMANCE. 1G1 

ranee to the life in regard to the night's work, got 
the fellows below all talking together about it, 
explaining, answering questions, boasting among 
themselves, and contradicting each other, till, be- 
ing probably half intoxicated and dull of appre- 
hension, they forgot the purpose of their visit, and 
finally went off together, disputing and wrangling 
over the events of the night. 

All this has taken nearly as long to tell as it 
did to happen ; and when, the rioters having gone, 
Mr. Adams came down stairs to us once more, 
after carefully closing his blinds and his windows, 
and stuffing his nightcap into a handy pocket, in 
case it should be needed again, he could not help 
modestly admiring his own skill in getting rid of 
them, even in the midst of his anxiety on our 
behalf. We children were all conveyed softly up 
stairs to a back chamber opposite the one occu- 
pied by the Nuns, and as I passed its open door 
I saw the poor Novice, white as the pillow under 
her head, lying with her eyes shut, so deathly still 
that when, a few weeks afterwards, I heard she 
was dead, I pictured her to myself, stretched out 



162 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

in her coffin, and looking exactly as I remember 
her at this moment, when I saw her for the last 
time. For the last time also I saw poor Sister 
Mary John, as I glanced through that open door. 
She was struggling to rise from her pillow, and 
was gently restrained by the Sisters, w T ho bent over 
her. She had heard our footsteps as we came up 
the stairs, and possessed with the idea that the 
murderers who had been so long pursuing her had 
at last found her out, she was full of terror, and I 
shall never forget the expression of her great hag- 
gard e}'es as she fixed them on the door, — the 
last look I ever had of her. The Nuns had ven- 
tured to keep a candle burning in the room they 
occupied, as it fortunately was furnished with 
window-shutters, which they closed tightly before 
they dared indulge themselves with a light. By 
the melancholy glimmer of this one candle these 
two sad faces, side by side on one pillow, were 
daguerreotyped on my memory. 

I suppose the opposite room, in which we 
children were crowded together, was good Mrs. 
Adams's "spare room," for though we were al- 



WHEN WILL IT END? 1G3 

lowed no candle, I perceived through the darkness 
a glimmering of pure white all about it, from 
muslin curtains and from toilet-covers and " ti- 
dies " and towels and a Marseilles counterpane. 
Mrs. Adams gently requested us to take off our 
shoes before stretching ourselves on this last, and 
I, finding a vacant spot near the footboard of the 
bedstead, made haste to take it for poor little 
Louisa's use, and as her small body occupied but a 
tiny place, I squeezed myself in, close to her side, 
partly for the convenience of holding her hand, 
and partly because I began to feel inexpressibly 
weary. The little Southerner was as passive all 
night in my hands as Claribel herself would have 
been, — she showed no more will or life. The 
poor little creature was no heavier than a good- 
sized doll, but she was far more badly made ; her 
small skeleton lacked altogether the plump round- 
ness of finish that sawdust gives. 

" Will this night ever come to an end ] " I 
asked myself, as I lay with my head against the 
footboard of the bedstead, trying hard to keep my 
quivering eyelids closed, for though I was terribly 



164 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

weary, I had no desire to sleep. I really had to 
make an effort to remember how daylight and 
sunshine looked. So many events and so many 
emotions had been crowded into the last few 
hours that I seemed to have lived a year since 
the last sunset. " And no sign of morning yet ! " 
I thought, opening my eyes, and fixing them on 
the window to see if there was any glimmering 
of dawn. Nothing but the everlasting night was 
to be seen in the sky, but voices again struck my 
ear, and the sounds of footsteps drawing nearer 
and nearer. More rioters, I thought, starting up 
from the bed. And indeed the bell again rang 
loudly, and thumps and kicks were bestowed on 
the front door. And in the midst of the perfect 
silence preserved in the house I heard Mr. Adams 
again opening the window and blinds of his cham- 
ber, and caught the sound of his voice, addressing 
those below who had disturbed him. The par- 
leying back and forth between door and window 
did not last long this time ; of course the visitors 
were a band of rioters, who had not given up the 
search for the Superior, and I don't know what 



FRIENDS FIND US. 1G5 

number of righteous falsehoods were uttered by 
Mr. Adams in getting rid of them. They went 
away, however, and I sank back into my old place 
by the footboard. The bed was covered with 
children, and some lay about the floor on the pil- 
lows they had taken from it, and I don't remem- 
ber that they took any notice of this second visit 
of the mob. I dare say most of them were asleep. 
And after the intruders were gone I too fell asleep, 
probably only for a few moments, and my sleep 
must have been light, for I was aroused by hear- 
ing more voices at the front door, more knocking 
and ringing, followed in due course by the opening 
of the chamber window, and Mr. Adams's tones of 
expostulation. But I was very much surprised to 
hear him suddenly speak in a natural, joyful voice, 
and then, leaving the w r indow open, hurry down 
stairs, and actually unbolt and unlock the front 
door, and fling it wide open ! I heard footsteps 
in the little hall, and afterwards in the parlor 
below, but I could distinguish no voices, as proba- 
bly the conversation was carried on in whispers. 
Who could these strange visitors be, that were 



1GG THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

so gladly admitted into the Superior's pres- 
ence? 

I was just about to wake Louisa and go down 
stairs to see for nryself what had happened, when 
Mrs. Adams opened our chamber door and came 
in gently. " I am awake ! " I whispered, jumping 
off the bed. " Who are those people down stairs, 
Mrs. Adams V "I am so sorry to wake up these 
tired children," she answered, " but I think they 
ought to know that Mr. B aud his brother- 
in-law," — she mentioned his name, but I have 
forgotten it, — " the fathers of two of the Convent 
scholars, have just come out of Boston in search 
of their children, and Mr. Cutter sent them here 
to look for them." I suddenly remembered that 
Mr. Cutter and his men had disappeared as soon 
as they had left us safely housed at Mr. Adams's, 
— of course to return home immediately and keep 
guard over their own property. Mrs. Adams went 
on to say, in the whispered tones we were all 

enjoined to use, that Mr. B and his brother 

were greatly distressed and disappointed in not 
finding their children at her house, and on hearing 



ONE MORE START. 107 

from the Superior that they had never joined her 
party, and that she knew nothing about them. 
As they had already made all the inquiries they 
dared in the neighborhood of the Convent, they 
now proposed to return to Boston at once, in 
hopes of finding their daughters safe at home 
before them. And they offered to take charge of 
as many of the children whom Mr. Adams was 
so kindly sheltering as were willing to accompany 
them. Mrs. Adams roused the girls from their 
sleep on the bed and on the floor, and made them 

all understand this offer of Mr. B and his 

brother, patiently explaining it over and over to 
minds stupefied by so many hours of excitement 
and fatigue. She was hospitable and thoughtful 
to the last, assuring the girls that they were wel- 
come to stay at her house just as long as they 
wished, till their parents and friends should come 
for them, and bidding them remember that it 
would not be easy to get to Boston that night, 
when no carriages could be procured, and the 
roads might be infested by the rioters. I am 
afraid we did not pay much attention to Mrs. 



168 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

Adams's prudent remarks ; we all decided to go 

with Mr. B and his brother, — believing, with 

the faith of little girls, that we should be safe in 
the company of grown-up men, — all except a few 
of the children whose homes were at a distance, 
and who had no friends in Boston. 

We did not give much time to preparation for 
our journey ; there was very little to be done. 
Frocks were tied up and twitched into position ; 
those who had on small shawls brought the two 
ends round from back to front ; and those who 
still had strings in their shoes laced them up. 
Those who had bonnets felt themselves to be in 
full dress, and we bareheaded ones involuntarily 
shrank behind them, as we stole down the stairs 
in a little procession, to present ourselves to the 
gentlemen who were waiting for us. 

The Superior, still sitting erect on her sofa, as 
one whom it was impossible to subdue or fatigue, 
took very little notice of us, and seemed not to 
care whether we went or stayed. She was talking 
volubly to the gentlemen, in low tones of course, 
but with many emphatic gestures, expressing, as 



NO TIME FOR THANKS. 1G9 

was natural enough, vehement indignation at the 
treatment to which she had been subjected, and 
the losses she had been made to suffer. The 
gentlemen, who would have sympathized with her 
keenly at any other time, were just then too anx- 
ious about their daughters' safety to think of any- 
thing else, and they left her abruptly, as soon as 
the forlorn group of children appeared in the hall. 
Before we quitted the house, careful Mrs. Adams 
took the precaution of stealing out upon the side- 
walk and surveying the road up and down, so as 
to make sure that the coast was clear for our 
starting. We left those generous, hospitable peo- 
ple without a word of adieu, or one expression of 
gratitude for their great goodness to us in our 
misfortunes, and I don't know whether our parents 
and friends ever called to thank them afterwards 
on our behalf. Nor do I know how long the Su- 
perior and her Community stayed at their house ; 
I never saw the Superior again, but in my memory 
she remains perpetually sitting bolt upright on 
the hair-cloth sofa, her dirty handkerchief in one 
hand, her snuff-box in the other. 



170 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

Mr. B crept in behind the parlor fireboard, 

just as we were leaving the house, in order to 
consult his watch, and great was my astonishment 
to find it was only three o'clock when our journey 
to Boston began. A journey indeed it proved to 

be, though Mr. B had intended, when we 

started, to make it as easy as possible for our 
weary little legs by taking us to Charlestown 
Street through roads as direct as it seemed pru- 
dent to follow, and then, chartering a stage, to 
convey us the rest of the way to the city. Mr. 
Adams's house fronted the main road to Boston by 
the way of Charlestown, but it led past the foot 
of Mount Benedict. As it was the only road to 

the city with which Mr. B was acquainted, he 

at first slowly took his way down the hill, with 
the intention of following it, if possible; but when 
we got near the bottom of Winter Hill, the light 
that still blazed from the burning Convent illu- 
minated a great number of black figures still sur- 
rounding the building, and going up and down 
Mount Benedict, crowding the turnpike before us, 
and making a confused, excited murmur of talking 



A WEARY WANDERING. 171 

and laughing. Perhaps the crowd had been drawn 

together only by curiosity ; but Mr. B dared 

not venture to pass them with his odd-looking 
flock of girls, who would be instantly recognized 
as fugitives from the Convent, and at least ex- 
posed to brutal jeers, so he reluctantly turned 
back, and after ascending Winter Hill again, he 
plunged to the left into a lane that he fancied 
would lead us past the foot of Mount Benedict 
and into the street beyond by a detour. 

So on we walked and walked in this solitary 

lane, Mr. B and his brother first leading the 

way, and the children straggling behind in pro- 
found silence. I still held little Louisa's hand in 
a tight grasp, and it was lucky for me she was 
so light and small, as I was obliged to half carry 

her when her feeble steps failed. Mr. B was 

very patient, and very sure we should come out 
all right on the main road in time, but evidently 
we had found the long lane that had no turning, 
and he grew first anxious and then discouraged, 
and stopped at last to reconnoitre. We had come 
to a little bridge which crossed a small stream, 



172 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

and, hanging over this bridge with folded arms, 
apparently regarding the water, was the solitary 
figure of a man, as motionless as the fisherman 
on my mother's Chinese Willow ware plates, who 
surveys the blue water from the blue bridge in the 
same attitude. I remember asking little Louisa 
if she did not see the resemblance, supposing that 
every family from Canada to New Orleans used 
Willow- pattern plates because we did. The poor 
little thing was getting fretful, and I wanted to 

amuse her while Mr. B was talking with the 

solitary on the bridge. He was evidently asking 
the w r ay, and the man, without raising his head, 

muttered some reply w 7 ith which Mr. B had 

to be satisfied. When he rejoined us, I heard 
him tell his brother that the right way to get 
to Charlestown Main Street from this lane, as well 
as he could make out from the answers he had 
received from the man, was by Lechmere Point, 
and that Lechmere Point was off in that direction, 
vaguely sweeping the dark horizon w r ith his hand. 
So we started on our journey again with new 
courage. I never heard of Lechmere Point before 



MORNING DAWNS. 173 

that moment. I have never been there since, and 
I am sure we did not find it that night, though 

Mr. B continued to walk on and on towards 

the horizon with the perseverance of the Wan- 
dering Jew; and we followed, still in profound 
silence, our strength kept up in some mysterious 

way. We all felt that Mr. B was doing his 

very best for us, and that if he had not under- 
taken to guide us he could have gone straight 
home by the main road, unnoticed by the rioters, 
if they were still in the neighborhood, so we would 
not add to his perplexities by our complaints. 

We were walking with our faces to the east, and 
we could see morning coming from a long way off. 
When the dawn began to glimmer in the sky, it 
seemed to me like the quivering of a closed eye- 
lid just before it is lifted; and as the light grew 
brighter and rose higher and higher above the 
horizon, this eyelid of night seemed gradually to 
unclose, till the eye of day looked forth uncur- 
tained. My imagination was stimulated by hours 
of unwonted excitement, and all manner of strange 
fancies darted through my brain, as I believe I 



174 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

have made evident euough in the course of this 
little history. 

1 think my thoughts as well as my eyes must 
have been in the sky, for I recollect realizing, with 
a great start, that we had fairly come out at last 
on Charlestown Main Street, after losing our way 
and wandering vaguely about, I knew not where. 
I am sure the gentlemen who were with us were 
astonished too, to find themselves unexpectedly 
exactly where they wanted to be just when they 
were feeling sure they should never get there ! 
And it was time the journey should end; some 
town-clock struck six as we crossed the street and 
hurried into the great paved courtyard of the 
tavern or stage-house. I was astonished to see 
the sun shining brightly on houses and shops ; I 
think I must have been walking mechanically, 
with "my heart asleep," as the Irish say, for I 
had forgotten that day was come, and had only 
been conscious of the relief I felt in the departure 
of that dreadfully long night. I roused my torpid 
faculties, and helped little Louisa to climb a flight 
of steep back stairs, by which somebody belonging 



THE RETURNING MOB. 175 

to the tavern introduced us all into a large private 

room. Mr. B and his brother, who had been 

anxious and uncertain and hesitating in manner 
and speech ever since they left Mr. Adams's house, 
now brightened up and grew brisk and quick and 
energetic. They were very thankful that we had 
got safely to the stage-house before the town had 
waked up, and while the streets were empty and 
deserted ; they could hardly understand our good 
luck in finding them so, or why it was that at six 
o'clock of a summer morning the shops were still 
shut up and the blinds of the houses closed. The 
great stage-house itself was not open to the pub- 
lic, and when Mr. B , who had often stopped 

there, led us through the courtyard to the back 
entrance, he was surprised to see the stables 
closed and the yard empty, save that two or three 
hostlers lounged about, keeping well out of sight 
of passers-by. We were told that behind all these 
bolts and shutters and blinds the people who lived 
on Charlestown Street were palpitating with alarm 
and apprehension, expecting every moment the 
return of the rioters, of whom nothing had been 



17G THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

seen since they roused the town by marching 
through it between nine and ten o'clock of the 
night before. If we could only keep in advance 
of them, and leave the stage-house before they 
came up, how lucky we should be ! 

The two gentlemen went down stairs to order 
the stage at once, which was to take us the rest 
of the way to Boston. They were gone a long 
time, we thought, as we sat round the walls of the 
tavern parlor, on two dozen wooden chairs, terri- 
bly impatient to be off, and straining our ears to 
catch the sound of stage-wheels, or the tramp of 
the rioters, wondering which we should hear first ! 
We had plenty of time to examine each other 
curiously by the light of day ; such a forlorn little 
set of children as we were, — half of us with 
nothing on our heads but our tumbled hair, which 
fell in elf-locks round our dusty faces. Down the 
cheeks of the smallest girls meandered muddy 
streaks, the marks of tears wiped away with dirty 
fingers. I don't believe we mustered a couple of 
pocket-handkerchiefs in the entire party, or half 
a dozen shoestrings. Some of us dragged our 



THE HEADLESS DOLL. 177 

shoes after us slipshod, and both shoes and stock- 
ings, and the bottoms of our frocks, were covered 
with mud from walking through dewy grass and 
dust}' roads. Some garterless stockings had been 
encumbering the wearers by getting under their 
heels, and they were tying them up with ravel- 
lings from ragged petticoats, torn cither on the 
bushes or in being dragged over the Convent 
fence. A very few of the children had made an 
attempt to save some of their property. One girl 
had her " lap-bag" with her patchwork and silver 
thimble ; another, who was dressed more thor- 
oughly than any of the party, having on frock, 
bonnet, and shawl, carried her nightgown rolled 

up under the shawl. This reminded Mary H 

to take off her nightcap, which she still wore 
under her bonnet, and put it in her pocket. One 
little girl carried a small doll, whose head had 
rolled from its shoulders in the course of the 
night, so that the poor little mother sat weeping 
silently in a corner ; while my heart ached sym- 
pathetically in thinking of Claribel. Penelope 
E had saved a basketful of stockings, the 



178 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

legs of which hung limp around the sides of the 
basket. They reminded me of the dangling necks 
of dead ducks which I had seen hanging out of 
the market - basket at home. Some milk was 
brought up for us to drink. I made my little 
Louisa swallow some, and I carried a tumblerful 
to the afflicted mother in the corner, who only 
shook her head sadly and pushed it away. I had 
made a bed of two chairs, and a pillow of my lap, 
for Louisa, and I felt a great pity for the poor 
little thing as I sat looking down into her pale 
thin face, with such dark rings round her eyes 
that the pale blue orbs looked almost white. She 
did not close them, neither did she appear to see 
with them. 

How glad we were when Mr. B opened the 

door and summoned us all to get into the stage ; 
he looked heated and vexed, for he had great diffi- 
culty in persuading the stage-agent to let us have 
the use of his " team," and the coachman had 
been unwilling to be seen on the box, and had 
also needed much persuasion. It was no wonder 
they hesitated, for the streets began to be filled 



WE LEAVE CIIARLESTOWN. 179 

with ill-looking men returning from the Convent, 
and they might be ripe fur more mischief when 
they recognized the passengers in the stage. 

Shut up in the back parlor of the tavern, 
we had heard nothing, and when the children 
found themselves jostled by " rowdy " men as soon 
as they reached the street, and saw a crowd of 
them pouring along the sidewalk, they would have 
turned and run back to the house, had not Mr. 

B insisted on hurrying us into the stage. 

He was most anxious to be at home, looking after 
his ow r n daughter, and yet he would not leave 
us behind him, so he determined to take the risk 
of an immediate return to Boston. We children 

filled the stage to overflowing, and Mr. B ■ 

and his brother encouraged the driver by placing 
themselves one on each side of him on the stage- 
box. 

And so began one of the strangest progresses 
ever made; the Convent was mobbed, robbed, and 
burnt by a body of from sixty to a hundred men, 
most of them Boston truckmen, who had bound 
themselves to undertake that work of destruction ; 






180 TEE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

while some tivo thousand men, old and young, and 
of all conditions, stood quietly by and looked on, 
aiding and abetting the rioters, because they did 
nothing to hinder them. In fact, after the work 
was done, rioters and spectators must have frater- 
nized in a general spree, for they returned together 
to the city from whence they came only when the 
broad light of day made it unsafe for them to be 
found anywhere else. Our stage drove from the 
door of the tavern just as this streaming tide of 
rioters was pouring down both sides of the de- 
serted Main Street of Charlestown ; and of course 
the large coach, the only vehicle in sight, attracted 
their attention at once. They had no difficulty 
in identifying the passengers; on account of the 
heat of the weather the curtains of the stage had 
been rolled up all round and the windows let 
down, so that the interior, full of pink calico, and 
crowded with childrens' heads, half of them bon- 
netless, was visible to all. We looked as ill-con- 
ditioned as a body of little paupers broken loose 
from the almshouse, and those of the mob who 
first caught sight of us broke into loud cheering 



A STRANGE ESCORT. 181 

and rude laughter. Fortunately it happened that 
the crowd was in a mood of high good-humor, and 
its heart may have warmed to our disreputable 
appearance, so like its own. At any rate, the 
idea of acting as our escort to the city seemed to 
seize upon it- as a good joke. So we slowly rode 
the gantlet between a double file of amiable ruf- 
fians, who saluted us with jeers, yells, shrill whist- 
ling, and cat-calling, roars of laughter, rough jokes, 
and questions. Most of them were in their shirt- 
sleeves ; some, like ourselves, had no hats ; others 
had trimmed their hats with green wreaths, and 
stuck flowers in their breasts ; some had red and 
yellow handkerchiefs tied round their heads, with 
a coxcomb or sunflower stuck in the knot. Some 
danced and shuffled along the sidewalk; others 
strode on with heads thrown back. Three or four 
together, with arms lovingly intwined, filled the 
width of the sidewalk here and there. Some car- 
ried a couple of hens, one under each arm ; some 
had shawls put across their shoulders, scarf-fashion, 
or tied round their waist. " That is my winter 
shawl,'' quietly remarked one of the older girls, 



182 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

breaking the silence in which we were riding 
along, and pointing to a burly tall fellow with a 
tartan plaid round his body. Luckily he did not 
see her. Many mock-respectful low bows were 
bestowed upon us, and much wild waving of arms 
and hands by way of salute. We scarcely under- 
stood any of the questions put to us in such 
rough, vulgar utterance as the crowd made use 
of, but we did not feel afraid of them ; they were 
evidently good-natured and meant us no harm. 
" Saved yer diamonds 1 " shouted one young man 
to Penelope, who was resting her basket on the 
edge ' of the stage window. The lovely, fearless 
girl shook her head, and displayed one of her 
stockings with a smile ; the crowd applauded ve- 
hemently. "I 've got something of yours, I guess ! " 
bawled out another, holding up his clenched fist 
to the carriage, which probably contained some 
valuable which he had stolen. " We 've spoiled 
your prison for you," cried a third. " You won't 
never have to go back no more." Indeed, the 
general sentiment of the mob seemed to be that 
they had done us a great favor in destroying the 



A PROCESSION OF RIOTERS. 183 

Convent, for which we ought to be grateful to 
them. 

How soon we get accustomed to anything, how- 
ever strange ! By the time our slow driver, who 
did not wish to excite the attention of the crowd 
by rapid driving over the stones, had brought us 
across the bridge into the city, we had ceased to 
fear this moving procession of rioters or to pay 
much attention to them. 0, how tired we all 
were ! We thought of nothing but rest, and the 
girls began to comfort themselves with the reflec- 
tion that it could not be far off. As for me, I had 
decided in my own mind to walk out to my home 
in Dorchester, about two miles and a half from 
Boston, just as soon as I should have fulfilled my 
promise to leave Louisa in a safe place ; so T knew 
that my hour of rest was still far off, and I mus- 
tered all my resolution to meet the call yet to be 
made on my strength. 

Mr. B and his brother, during this strange 

drive, had continued to sit one on each side of 
the coachman, apparently lost in abstraction, or 
asleep ; for they looked neither to the right nor 



184 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

the left, never speaking to each other, or turning 
to address the children or even the coachman, try- 
ing to escape the notice of the crowd by effacing 
themselves as much as possible. But when our 
stage had turned off into the city streets, and we 
had left the body of returning rioters behind us, 
they quickly recovered speech and energy, urged 
the driver to speed, and after a deafening, jolting 
rattle over Boston pavements, the stage drew up 

at the door of Mr. B 's house on Pearl Place. 

Before the gentlemen could jump down from the 

box seat, Mrs. B came running to the door, 

in hopes of meeting her daughter, who was not 

with us, and Mr. B 's disappointment was 

equal to hers, when he found that she had not 
yet got home, where he, on his part, had been so 
long hoping to find her. 

We children were kindly ushered up stairs to a 
parlor well furnished with sofas and chairs, and 

Mrs. B took some of the girls to her own 

chamber, bidding them lie down and rest for a 
while. Breakfast, she said, would soon be ready, 
it was only eight o'clock, and she would let them 



MY CHARGE IN SAFETY. 185 

know when the table was spread. She and Mr. 

B then went away, absorbed in their own 

affairs. Mr. B 's brother had already hurried 

home in hopes of being more fortunate, and find- 
ing his own little daughter safe with her mother. 
I never knew whether it was so, or what befell 

Mr. B 's little girl, or what was the fate of 

the children with whom I had been associated all 
night. They all vanished out of my life, at once 

and forever. I had drawn back when Mrs. B , 

looking compassionately at Louisa, kindly held 
out her hand to lead me and my little charge to 
her bedchamber, and had said something about 
making Louisa comfortable enough on the sofa. 
The little passive thing lay down there as I bid 
her, and I was delighted to see her actually shut 
her faded eyes, as if she really meant to go to 
sleep in the pleasant room whose comfortable ap- 
pearance seemed to reassure her. I was sure that 

Mr. and Mrs. B would take good care of her, 

and that, as I seemed to have made no impression 
on her feeble mind, she probably would not miss 
me when she waked. Feeling that I had fulfilled 



186 TEE BURNING OF TEE CONVENT. 

my promise to the Superior in regard to her, I 
withdrew my hand from hers, lingered to kiss her 
pale forehead and make sure that she was really 
sleeping, and then slipped out of the room, down 
the stairs, and out of the house, finding, fortu- 
nately for me, the front door ajar. 

In a moment I had turned the corner of Pearl 
Place, into Pearl Street. I knew my way home 
perfectly ; up Pearl Street into High, down High 
to Summer Street, along Summer to Sea Street, 
and through the length of Sea Street, out upon 
the Dorchester turnpike. Pearl Street was a 
handsome street, lined on each side with gentle- 
men's houses, some of which had beautiful gar- 
dens attached to them. There was quite a hill to 
be climbed at the upper end of it, where it turned 
into High Street, and up this hill I toiled as rap- 
idly as possible, for the few people who met me 
looked at me with such wonder and curiosity that 
I was in a hurry to leave this genteel part of the 
town and lose myself in the purlieus of Sea Street. 
As I have represented myself in the light of a 
heroine, through this little history, I am ashamed 



/ START FOR DORCHESTER. 187 

to say that in spite of my going to bed dressed, 
on the previous evening, I had shown as little 
forethought in completing my toilet as the tim- 
idest child in school whom terror had deprived of 
presence of mind. I was one of the bonnetless 
company, having nothing on my head or on my 
neck and arms. No wonder people stared ! I 
was unfortunate enough to own a great crop of 
coarse hair, a pair of keen black eyes, and a thin 
face, still "peaked" from the effects of a long 
typhoid-fever. " Dear me," I thought uneasily, 
as a milkman, jumping from his cart almost upon 
my feet, saluted me with a stare and a prolonged 
whistle, " I must look exactly like a weasel peep- 
ing from a brush-heap ! " for I was quite aware of 
my personal defects, and that I must be uglier 
than ever just then. The Boston Athenaeum, a 
handsome brick building, stood just at the head 
of Pearl Street, and as I approached it, I saw, to 

my consternation, Dr. A , our family physician, 

reading the "Advertiser," at the open window of 
the Reading-Room ; he was an elegant gentleman, 
precise in dress and manner, of whom I was al- 



188 TUE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

ways a little afraid. How devoutly I hoped he 
would not see me as I passed ! I had lost one 
shoestring, so that I could not walk very fast, but 
I held my head down, and shuffled along as rap- 
idly as possible, hoping that Dr. A would be 

too much absorbed in his newspaper to look up. 
But I believe that in those days the " Advertiser " 
never contained articles of absorbing interest ; at 
least the good doctor was not reading such a one 
at that moment, for he raised his eyes precisely as 
I was passing the window, and fixed them on me. 
He was really too surprised even to speak for a 
minute, and I hurried on, pretending not to see 
him. At last, " Louisa Goddard," he cried, in his 
loud cheery voice, " what are you doing here at 
this time of the morning, and where did you come 
from % " I turned short round upon him, and 
with a brevity that makes me smile when I think 
upon it, I replied, " The Convent was burnt to 
the ground last night by a mob, and I am on my 
way home." And I whisked round the corner as 
quickly as possible, running along High Street till 
my stringless shoe came off, I was so afraid the 



TWO MILES, BAREHEADED. 189 

doctor would stop me, and I was bent on getting 
home at once. 

News did not travel very fast at that time, and 
the destruction of the Convent was not generally 

known till late in the day. Dr. A afterwards 

said that he was too astounded by my appearance 
and words to come to his senses till I had disap- 
peared, and though he ran after me bareheaded, 
— a fact on which he dwelt, as a proof of his 
determination to overtake me, — I was gone past 
recall. I felt more at my ease when I got into 
Sea Street, which swarmed with Irish, as I passed 
unnoticed among the little Pats and Bridgets that 
played in the gutter, and crowded the sidewalk in 
front of the shanties where they lived. I began 
to feel a great pain in my right hand, — the hand 
in which I had grasped little Louisa's slender fin- 
gers for so many hours ; I had actually strained it 
badly by this close continued pressure. I rubbed 
it and shook it, as I walked bareheaded for two 
good miles, under the morning sun, along Dor- 
chester turnpike. This turnpike crossed a marsh, 
and was the highway between South Boston and 



190 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

the country. Tramps, beggars, and evil-disposed 
persons were always wandering up and down upon 
it, and though several gentlemen's chaises and 
carryalls passed me on the road, I was not taken 
much notice of, I suppose because I resembled the 
foot-passengers they were in the habit of meeting 
there. Excitement kept me up during that long- 
walk, but as I entered the back gate of my father's 
yard I felt that I was going to break down. 
Could it be possible that I was actually at home 
at that very hour on yesterday morning 1 I had 
to search back in my memory to recall the time, 
for years seemed to have passed since then. I 
hurried through the kitchen quickly • the cook 
was washing dishes at the sink, and she too turned 
and looked at me, as if she saw a spectre. I 
stopped at the foot of the back stairs and looked 
up; my mother was just crossing the landing, 
turning on her hand a clean sock for my father to 
put on, for she was one of the old-fashioned wives 
who laid out their husband's clean clothes at the 
proper times of changing as regularly as they did 
their baby's. 



/ REACH HOME. 191 



How well I remember her look and her scream 
when she saw me, — a scream that was repeated 
when I slowly ascended the stairs and appeared 
before her in all my forlornness. " What is the 
matter 1 How did you get here ? " she cried, seiz- 
ing hold of me. I answered her just as briefly as 

I had answered Dr. A . " The Convent was 

burned last night by a mob, and so I thought I 
had better come home." And then I broke into a 
violent fit of tears and hysterics. Strange to say, 
notwithstanding they had been forewarned of the 
possibility of this event happening, my parents 
did not believe my statement. My mother was 
immediately possessed with the idea that I had a 
brain-fever, — probably the result of my late long 
sickness, — and that I had run away from the 
Convent in that condition. Perhaps a confused 
recollection of Sister Mary John's illness haunted 
her mind. She forbade my speaking a single 
word more, though I made desperate efforts be- 
tween my sobs, and as soon as I was somewhat 
calmed, to get her to listen to my adventures. 
She took me into a darkened chamber, undressed 



192 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

and put me to bed, shut the door behind her, and 
sent for the doctor. I fell asleep, of course, for- 
tunately, or I might indeed have had a brain- 
fever, and before I waked the door began to be 
besieged by officious friends, who came to let my 
parents know what had happened on Mount Ben- 
edict. Three of the pupils died afterwards from 
the effects of that night's terrors and exposures, 
but I remained well enough to enjoy being the 
heroine of the family for a time. Indeed, I had 
the pleasure of knowing that I was called a hero- 
ine by some others outside the family. Long 
years afterwards I heard the story of the burning 
of the Convent by a mob repeated by strangers in 
California, and the courageous behavior of a little 
girl named Louisa Goddard commented upon in 
terms of admiration. No one knew that home- 
sickness in my case was stronger than fear, and 
that I was glad to welcome any way of escape 
from the novelty of Convent restraints. I was 
too young to understand the real dangers of the 
night, and too old or perhaps too sensible to be- 
lieve in the imaginary ones. 



WILL TEE SCEOOL BE BE OPENED? 193 

The friends of the Convent wished very much 
that the school should be continued, and urged 
the Sisters not to allow themselves to be driven 
from their post by the outcries of Protestant 
bigots. A large house in Roxbury was taken for 
them, and it seemed probable for some time that 
the school would be reopened there on a very 
small scale. This was a very anxious period for 
me, and I had sundry dreadful frights, for my 
father drove over with me several times to see the 
Sisters while they were in Roxbury, always assur- 
ing me, on the way, that he should leave me 
among them if he found they were ready to re- 
ceive pupils. 

Before this matter was settled, however, I was 
obliged to have some new frocks, my wardrobe 
having been destroyed in the fire that consumed 
the Convent. As my mother was much occupied 
with " the baby " of the period, who was teething, 
— we always had a baby at our house, and it 
was always teething, — she permitted me to go to 
Boston and choose them for myself. I well re- 
member good Mr. D , in his auburn wig, bend- 

9 m 



194 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

ing over the counter and pressing upon my notice 
some excellent French calicoes, " in good washable 
pink, best color in the world for children's wear," 
on which I turned my back with horror. I 
made haste to buy a blue print and a buff ging- 
ham, and was hurrying out of the store, when 

Mr. D called me back to thrust a little folded 

paper into my hand, containing patterns of the 
desirable pink calicoes, which I was to show my 
mother, and tell her they were cut from a lot 
of new goods, just received. "I am quite sure," 
he added, benignly smiling, "that when she ex- 
amines these patterns she will let you have a 
new pink frock ! " 

" 0, dear me ! I am dreadfully afraid she will, 
too," thought I to myself, as I walked away ; and 
I confess that after a struggle with my conscience 
I scattered the patterns along the street, and re- 
solved to say nothing to my mother about them. 
" Never," I thought, " would I put myself in the 
way of resuming the Convent uniform, — it would 
be like committing suicide to present myself to 
my father in a new pink frock, of my own free 



NO MORE PINK DRESSES! 195 

will; why, I should feel like a lamb ready for 
sacrifice." 

However, the Ursuline Community at last left 
the neighborhood of Boston, following the orders 
of their superiors, and all sorts of scandalous sto- 
ries were put in circulation in reference to their 
departure, not one of which, probably, had the 
least foundation in truth. 

This was a great relief to me, and now that I 
was no longer harassed by the fear of returning 
to the Convent, I recollect entering very warmly 
into the general indignation expressed by our 
friends at the conduct of the State in refusing to 
pay the Catholics the damages due them legally 
for the destruction of their property on Mount 
Benedict by the mob. My father, remembering my 
school-books and money paid for me in advance, 
thought some recompense due from the State to 
parents; and my mother, with a sigh, cordially 
agreed with him, as she recollected the time and 
labor spent on my outfit. My beautiful silver 
mug, one of fifty or sixty which glittered in the 
refectory buffet, — all of which were probably 



196 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

stolen by the rioters, — was a present to me in 
infancy from an aged aunt who lived to lament its 
loss, and was frequently heard to declare "that 
Massachusetts owed a new silver mug to every 
child bereaved of one by the mob." 

Bereaved ! Ah, I could have borne to be bereaved 
of my mug, my school-books, my pink frocks, and 
my pillow-cases, if Claribel had only been spared ! 
Even Claribel despoiled of her wardrobe, which 
had been the labor of my life, and dressed only in 
the tissue-paper chemise, the sole garment she 
brought with her from the shop. Thus, in my 
turn, I made my moan, with the feeling, however, 
that the State of Massachusetts could do nothing 
to recompense me. 

But while all sore feeling in regard to personal 
losses has long since passed away, the great fact 
remains the same, that the State of Massachusetts 
owed the Catholics complete reparation for the 
destruction of the Ursuline Convent on Mount 
Benedict by a wicked mob, and I shall never cease 
to feel indignant because it owes that reparation 
still ! 



ONE M OB SYMPATHIZER SNUBBED! 197 

After I grew up to be a young lady I remember 
meeting at a ball a certain middle-aged dandy, 
who endeavored to make himself agreeable to me, 
while waiting for our dance to begin, by relating 
one of his youthful experiences. "He had," he 
said, "formed one of a large party of young gentle- 
men, who followed the rioters to Charlestown, on 
the night of the burning of the Convent, merely 
out of curiosity to see what they would do," and 
who afterwards, seated on the grass at a respectful 
distance, watched them till they had completed 
their work of destruction. 

" And did you do nothing to prevent it ] " I 
asked, flashing round upon him indignantly. "Did 
you make no attempt to help the Nuns and the 
children ?" 

" Why — a — no — " he answered, a little dis- 
concerted at my vehemence ; " there did n't seem 
to be anything we could do, — and in fact — I 
was nH acquainted with any of the young ladies of 
the school at that time. There were some very 
pretty girls there, so I have heard, but you see, I 
had n't been introduced. If I had known any of 



198 THE BURNING OF THE CONVENT. 

them, of course I should have — Ah ! " greatly 
relieved, "there is our waltz at last. How beauti- 
fully the Germanias play those Nathalie waltzes ! 
Allow me," and Mr. Dandy let his eye-glass 
drop from the socket in which he had stuck it, 
and put forth a gracefully curving arm to encircle 
my waist. 

" Excuse me," said I coldly, drawing back, "but 
I don't like a feeble partner. I like to be held 
up firmly when I waltz, and that arm," and I 
looked significantly at the outstretched member, 
"must be weak indeed which had not strength 
to uplift itself in defence of helpless women and 
girls." 

" I had him there ! " was my elegant reflection, 
as I walked away, fanning my flushed face, and 
rejoicing that my skill as a dancer, which Mrs. 
Barryrnore had praised at the Convent, was now 
sufficiently developed to make my refusal of Mr. 
Dandy for a partner a mortification to him. 



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